“No; haven’t had a bite,” replied Rob; and the words had hardly left his lips when Brazier’s gun raised an echo across the river, which ran to and fro, reflected by the wall of trees in zigzag course till it died out.
But no one listened to the echo, for all attention was taken by a large duck, one of about a dozen which had come skimming along over the surface of the water till its course had been stopped by Brazier’s accurate shot, when it fell flapping heavily and raising quite a spray around it as it began to float rapidly down-stream.
“Come, we mustn’t lose that,” cried Shaddy, running to unfasten the rope which moored the boat. “We’ll go together. Mr Joe, sir, haul in your line.”
But before the boy could obey there was a cry of annoyance from Brazier as, with a slight splash, something seized the duck and drew it under.
“’Nother supper gone!” growled Shaddy.
“What was it?” cried Brazier.
“Didn’t see, sir. Either a ’gator or a big fish. Look sharp, Mr Joe, sir. Now, if you could catch that there fish with the duck in his jaws too, it would be something like.”
But Joe did not have the chance to catch a fish with the duck or without, and Rob fervently hoped that he might not catch the captor of the duck, for he felt certain that he had seen the jaws of a small alligator close upon the unfortunate bird as he held the end of his line tightly and waited for the bite which would not come.
But in the midst of that lovely solitude there was no room for disappointment. Though they could not obtain exactly what they sought, Rob felt that nature was offering them endless treasures, and his eye was being constantly attracted by the flowers high up on the trees across the river and the still more beautiful butterflies and birds constantly passing here and there. Now it was some lovely object whose large flat wings flashed with steely or purply blue, according to the angle in which it was viewed, then butterflies of velvety black dashed with orange and vermilion. Parrots of vivid green with scarlet heads flew to and fro across the stream; and twice over a great ara or macaw, with its large, hooked beak and scarlet-and-blue feathering, a very soldier in uniform among birds, flew over them, watching them keenly as it uttered its harsh, discordant cry. Then, too, there were the humming-birds darting here and there with bee-like flight, emitting a flash every now and then as their metallic, scale-like feathers caught the sun on their burnished surface.
“No,” said Rob to himself, “one can’t feel disappointed here,” and soon after, as he drew a long, deep breath full of satisfaction, “Oh, how gloriously beautiful it all is! What would they say at home?”