Uncle Dick was in as great a state of delight as I, and our pleasure seemed to be reflected upon Ebo, who showed his satisfaction at having brought us to the place, by shouldering his spear and striding up and down with one hand upon his hip, as if proud of his position as companion of the white man.
The time glided by very fast during our stay at the island, where we found plenty of fruit, as many fish as we liked to catch, and abundance of large pigeons and other birds to help our larder. The climate was hot, but the breezes that came from the sea always seemed to modify the heat and make it bearable. Several storms occurred, during which the trees bent before the fury of the blast, and the waves piled the sands high with weeds and shells. The lightning was terrific and the thunder deafening. At times it was awful, and a curious scared feeling used at first to come over me. But I soon grew used to the storms, and as they were soon over, took but little notice of them, except to enjoy the delicious freshness of the air that seemed afterwards to make everything ten times more beautiful than it was before.
It would become wearisome if I kept on writing of the beauty of the different varieties of the birds of paradise we found, and the lovely tinting and arrangement of their plumes; let it be sufficient when I tell you that scarcely a day passed without Ebo finding some fresh specimen for us to shoot, and then dancing round with the delight of a boy as we skinned and preserved the new treasure. Sometimes we had a beetle day, sometimes a butterfly day, collecting the loveliest specimens; but birds formed our principal pursuit, and our cases began to present a goodly aspect as we packed in carefully the well-dried aromatic skins.
I had had one or two more slight touches of fever, and my uncle was poorly once, but he so skilfully treated us both that the disease was soon mastered, and the trouble passed over. Taken altogether, though, we found the island, in spite of the heat, a most delightful place of residence, and it was with feelings of real regret that I sat in our swift boat one day with the big sail set, skimming over the smooth sea, all our stores on board, and Uncle Dick at the helm steering due north, for we had bidden the beautiful island farewell, and its shores were beginning to grow distant to our eyes.
Chapter Thirty Eight.
Ebo does not approve of New Guinea for Reasons that appear.
It did not seem to matter to Ebo where we went so long as he was with us. He must have been a man of five-and-thirty, and he was brave as a lion—as the lion is said to be in the story, for in reality he is a great sneak—but Ebo seemed to have the heart of a boy. He was ready to laugh when I did, and sit by me when I was ill or tired, his face full of sympathy, and no sooner was I better than it was the signal for a triumphal dance.
Ebo was as happy now as could be. It did not matter to him where we were going, and he laughed and chattered and pointed out the fish to me as we skimmed over the shallow water of the coral reefs, sometimes approaching islands whose names we did not know, and which were apparently too small to be down in the chart; but whatever temptations they might hold out my uncle steered right on due north, and on the evening of the second day there was land stretching east and west as far as we could see.