The way proved to be a long and toilsome journey, through the stifling heat of the jungle, which was here tolerably open, and so full of specimens attractive to the doctor that he fidgeted with disappointment at having to pass them by. He, however, resolutely refrained from attempting to collect, and only forfeited one cigar by the time that, after their weary tramp, gun in hand, the guide pointed to a low palm-thatched house, within a strong bamboo palisade, which protected a garden.
“Who’d have thought of finding a house here?” said Chumbley, who began to think of the Inche Maida’s hiding-place, to which this was very similar. “But where is the pathway?”
“On the other side, master. I brought you all round this way so as not to alarm the guards. They might have taken their prisoner farther into the jungle where he could not be found.”
A short consultation was held, and then Chumbley’s proposal was carried in opposition to the more timid one of the guide’s.
Chumbley’s was the very soldier-like one of draw and advance.
This they did, the men with their spears, and Chumbley and the doctor double gun in hand; and after a little struggle with nothing more dangerous than canes, they forced their way round to the front of the place and entered, to find everything just as if it had been inhabited an hour before, but neither prisoner nor guards were there.
“The birds are flown,” said Chumbley, after they had searched the half-dozen airy rooms that formed the place.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but he has been here. Look!”
He pointed to a couple of long shelves made by placing bamboos together, and upon them, carefully dried, were hundreds of botanical specimens, laid as only a botanist would have placed them.
There was the chance of the prisoner returning, but it hardly seemed probable; and after some hours waiting, it was decided to return to the boat, to pass the night there, and return the next day.