“Not near enough. Let’s get on, I’m growing hungry, and beginning to think of dinner, a cigar, a good rest, and a bathe in that delicious-looking sea. By the way, the clouds are gathering about the top of that mountain. I hope we shall have no storm to-night. Why, Mark, the pigeons are gone! I hung them upon that branch.”
Mark turned from gazing at the clouds, which seemed to be forming about the cone away to his right, and was obliged to confess that the pigeons were gone.
“Savage, or some animal,” said the major, peering cautiously round.
“Would it be a big bird—eagle or vulture?” said Mark. “I saw one fly over.”
“Might be,” replied the major. “I’m not naturalist enough to say; and if I was, I daren’t, Mark, for what a bird will do in one country it will not in another.”
Mark stared at him.
“Well, I mean this, Mark, my lad. At home, in England, the kingfishers sit on twigs over the streams, and dive into the water and catch fish. Here, in the East, numbers of them sit on twigs in the forest paths and catch beetles, so there’s no knowing what a bird of prey would do in a place like this.”
Just then they were close up to the tree, and Bruff set up a joyous barking, which was answered by the chattering of the monkey.
“Why, there’s Jack!” cried Mark.
“The rascal, he has got down my pigeons!” cried the major.