“What’s the matter?” cried Don, making for the inner part of their hiding-place.
“No, no; don’t do that. It’s all right, Mas’ Don, only don’t say anything more about food. I feel just now as if I could eat you. It’s horrid how hungry I am.”
“You see then,” said Don, “how helpless we are.”
“Yes; if it was only a biscuit I wouldn’t mind just now, for there don’t seem to be nothing to eat here, nor nothing to drink.”
They stood leaning against the rocky wall, not caring to risk sitting down on account of the foul air, and not daring to go to the mouth of the cave for fear of being seen, till Don suggested that they should steal there cautiously, and lie down with their faces beyond the cavern floor.
This they did, glad of the restful change; but hours passed and no sounds met their ears, save the hissing and gurgling from the interior of the cave, and the harsh screech of some parrot or cockatoo.
Every time a louder hiss than usual came from the interior, Jem became convulsed, and threatened another explosion of laughter, in spite of Don’s severely reproachful looks; but in every case Jem’s mirthful looks and his comic ways of trying to suppress his hilarity proved to be too much for Don, who was fain to join in, and they both laughed heartily and well.
It is a curious fact, one perhaps which doctors can explain, and it seems paradoxical. For it might be supposed that when any one was hungry he would feel low-spirited, but all the same there is a stage in hunger when everything around the sufferer seems to wear a comic aspect, and the least thing sets him off laughing.
This was the stage now with Jem and Don, for, the danger being past, they lay there at the mouth of the hole, now laughing at the recollection of the sailor’s fright, now at the cries of some parrot or the antics of a cockatoo which kept sailing round a large tree, whose hold on the steep rocky side of the ravine was precarious in the extreme.
The presence of white people seemed to cause the bird the greatest of wonder, and to pique his curiosity, and after a flit here and a flit there, he invariably came near and sat upon a bare branch, from which he could study the aspect of the two intruders.