“Poor wretches!” said Murray, brushing away at his bird-skin. “Soft soap. Gammon, Braine. He is afraid that we shall slip off, eh?”
“Yes; that is the plain English of the matter.”
“And the men are to follow us still.”
“Yes. You must put up with it.”
“Ah, well, the place is so rich that I will not grumble. I must say that the men are never too attentive, and it would be unpleasant if we were to be speared and krissed; eh, Ned?”
“And skinned and preserved as specimens of the English for his highness’s museum,” said Ned, quietly, as he carefully drew the skin of a lovely blue and drab thrush over its skull.
“No one to do it,” said Mr Braine, laughing.
“Well, I shall not grumble again,” continued Murray. “Tell him we’ll go soon right up to the hills through the jungle, and that I’ll try and find him a gold-mine. You were quite right, Braine; we could not have done better for natural history if we could have gone where we liked.”
“I am sure you couldn’t.”
“Ladies quite well—Mrs Braine and the Barnes’s and Greigs?”