The doctor was ruffled exceedingly at his slip of grammar, and looked very much annoyed; but the thought of being able to secure a specimen of the much-prized Argus pheasant chased away the other trouble, and he walked on closely behind his guide.
“How far have we to go, my lad?” he said.
“Walk two hours,” said the Malay, “then sit down and listen. No speak a word till Coo-ow come. Then make gun speak and kill him!”
“To be sure!” said the doctor, nodding his head; and then almost in silence he followed his guide, often feeling disposed to try and shoot one or other of the nocturnal birds that flitted silently by, or one of the great fruit bats that, longer in their spread of wings than rooks, flew in flocks on their way to devastate some orchard far away.
Quite two hours had elapsed, during which the Malay, apparently quite at home, led his scientific companion right away through the gloom of the wilderness.
At last he enjoined silence, saying that they were now approaching the haunts of the wondrous bird; and consequently the doctor crept on behind him without so much as crushing a twig.
They had reached an opening in the forest by the side of what was evidently a mountain of considerable height, and the doctor smiled as he recalled the fact that the Argus pheasant was reputed to haunt such places; when to his intense delight there soddenly rang out from the distance on the silent night air a peculiar cry that resembled the name given to the bird—Coo-ow. For the moment it seemed to the doctor as if some Australian savage was uttering his well-known Coo-ay, or as if this was the Malays’ form of the cry. But he knew well enough what it was, and following his guide with the greatest caution they crept on towards the place from which the sound had seemed to come.
It was weird work in that wild solitude far on towards midnight, but the doctor was too keen a naturalist to think of anything but the specimen of which he was in search. He knew that the native hunters, out night after night, could not shoot more than one of these birds in a year, and it would be quite a triumph if he could add such a magnificent thing to his collection.
Coo-ow—rang out the strange cry, and it seemed quite near. Then again Coo-ow, and this time it appeared to be a long way off.
This was tantalising, but he concluded directly after that the second cry might be that of another bird answering the first.