Peter Pegg started up into a sitting position, vacant of face and staring at the straightly streaked rays of sunshine that made their way through the plaited and latticed sides of the stable-like building in which he had dropped to sleep.
“What’s all that row?” he muttered. “Where am I?”
He rubbed his eyes; and then, as the grunting, snorting noise continued, “What does it all mean?” he went on. “Why, I’ve been asleep, and was dreaming something about old Bobby Hood’s pigs at home, grunting. Am I dreaming now? Them ain’t pigs. Here, I know—helephants!”
He turned his face to the side of the place against which he had been leaning, drew himself up, and applied his eyes to one of the cracks, just as a voice seemed to be calling out in the Malay tongue at three of the great cumbrous-looking beasts which were about a couple of yards away from the building.
“Driving of them, and they won’t go,” thought the watcher; and the speaker, a stunted-looking Malay with a short, iron-spiked implement, somewhat like the iron of a boat-hook, in his hand, came into sight between the huge pachyderms and the door, shouting and growling at his charge as he waved the hook and progged the nearest beast as if trying to drive them away.
“What a fool I was not to have learned this precious lingo! They want to come in, and he’s telling them to get on. Well, there ain’t no room for them here.—Ah, he don’t like that!” For the dumpy Malay made use more freely of the goad he carried, and the nearest beast gave vent to an angry half-squeal, half-grunt, as, shrinking from the prod delivered at its flank, it made a rush at two companions, driving its great head first at one and then at the other, and with a good deal of grumbling, squealing, and waving of trunks, they shuffled out of sight.
“Why, I must have been asleep,” cried Pegg, as he made for another opening where the sun streamed in; “but my head—oh, my head, how it aches! I can’t seem to understand what it means. It’s all of a—” He turned slowly round, staring vacantly, till his eyes fell upon the basket and jar almost at his feet. “’Nanas—water! Why,”—he turned his eyes in another direction, and then, with a faint cry of dismay, he shuffled across the place, making the dry leaves with which the floor was covered rustle loudly, as he sank upon his knees beside Archie. “I’ve got it now,” he said to himself. “I remember; but my head’s as thick as wool. He went to sleep, and I sat down to watch till he woke. Nice watch I’ve kept! Well, it’s a good job those great brutes come along and woke me up. This must have been their old stable, and if I don’t look out, one of these times they will be shoving that door down and walking in a-top of us. Poor old chap! He’s sound enough now. Mustn’t touch him. It would be a pity to wake him. I couldn’t have been asleep many minutes.”
Peter drew away silently and stood for a few moments watching the bright rays of sunshine that streamed in through the side of the building; and unconsciously he raised one hand and made a peculiar motion with it as if he were following the streaks of light from right to left with his index-finger.
“Seems rum,” he muttered; “but it’s my head being so thick, I suppose. Oh, there’s that banana I began to eat;” and he stooped down, picked it up from where it lay amongst the leaves, and then dipped the cocoa-nut cup into the water, and took a deep draught of the refreshing beverage.
“Ah!” he sighed, as he set down the shell. “Seems to wash the cobwebs out of one’s head. Wonder where those helephants were being driven.”