“He’s been along here, Mr Rob, sure enough. Keep a good heart, sir; we’re getting cleverer at tracking.”
On they went in silence, forcing their way between the trees, with the forest appearing darker than ever, save here and there, where, so sure as a little light penetrated, with it came sound. Now it was the hum of insect life in the sunshine far above their heads; now it was the shrieking or twittering of birds busy feasting on fruit, and twice over an angry chattering told them that they had monkeys for their companions high overhead; but insect, bird, and the strangely agile creatures which leaped and swung among the boughs, were for the most part invisible, and they toiled on.
All at once Rob raised the bow he carried, and touched Shaddy sharply on the shoulder.
“Eh? what’s the matter, my lad?” cried the man, turning quickly.
“Look! Don’t you see?” whispered Rob. “There, by that patch of green light? Some one must have climbed up that green liana which hangs from the bough. It is swinging still. Do you think a monkey has just been up it, or is it some kind of wild cat?”
Shaddy uttered his low chuckling laugh as he stood still leaning upon his bamboo staves.
“If it had been a cat we should have seen a desperate fight, my lad,” he replied. “If it was a monkey I’m sorry for him. He must have gone up outside and come down in. Why, can’t you see what it is?”
“A great liana, one of those tough creeper things. Look how curiously it moves still! Some one’s dragging at the end. No, it isn’t. Oh, Shaddy, it’s a great serpent hanging from the bough!”
“That’s more like it, my lad. Look! You can see its head now.”
In effect the long, hideous-looking creature raised its head from where it had been hidden by the growth below, twisted and undulated about for a few moments, and then lifted it more and more till it could reach the lower part of the bough from which it hung, and then, gradually contracting its body into curves and loops, gathered itself together till it hung in a mass from the branch.