“Bird—shoot—bird.”
“He seems to have brought us here under the impression that it is a good place, Nat, and I trust it will prove so,” said my uncle. “I hope there will be no unpleasant savages to hinder our work.”
As we drew nearer the glass was frequently brought to bear, but neither my uncle nor I could detect any sign of habitation, not even when we were within a quarter of a mile of the shore; but, to Uncle Dick’s great delight, the place proved to be densely wooded in some parts, while the lofty hills looked green and park-like, with the large trees dotted here and there.
The beach was a soft white sand, upon which the waves curled gently over; and not twenty yards from the highest marks made by the tide, the tall palms, loaded with fruit, drooped their great feathery leaves.
As far as we could see the island was not large, but the interior was very mountainous, the green hills running up to a great height, for the most part well-clothed with wood; and to our great delight, as we ran the boat cautiously upon the sand, we could hear the screams of parrots and the whistling and twittering of innumerable birds.
“We may as well be prepared against danger,” said Uncle Dick, loading his gun, and I followed suit; but Ebo began to chatter and expostulate with us for leaving the boat, and signed to us to help him run it up on the next wave well ashore, so that a rope could be made fast round the nearest palm stem.
This we did, and the black’s next movement was to collect wood for a fire.
To humour him we waited about while he lit the fire, but kept making little incursions amongst the openings to see if we could spy out any signs of human habitation.
But look where we would we saw nothing, and it soon became evident that we were the only occupants of that part of the island.
Ebo seemed so satisfied and contented that it was very evident that there was nothing to fear; so we obeyed his signs after we had helped him to make a good fire, and followed him through an open park-like piece of the country till we were about half a mile from the sea, when his object in guiding us was plain enough, for he pointed out a little flock of half a dozen pigeons, as big, it seemed to me, as ordinary fowls, and getting within range we fired together, and shot four.