Strange to say, the excitement appeared to have almost restored Harry to health. He no longer felt weak, and he longed to be away on the road again.
He knew enough of the climate, however, not to venture for a week or two longer, for a man needs all the nerve and strength that the human frame can possess to battle against the odds presented to him on such a journey as that which he was now making.
The day wore away, the sun set in a cloudscape of indescribable glory, the short twilight succeeded, then the stars peeped out through the blue rifts in the sky.
After a supper of fruit and roasted yams, Harry lay down on his couch of grass and fell into a dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, the stars were still shining and the sky was far more clear. A brightly burning scimitar of a moon was declining towards the horizon, and not far from it, to the west and north, the well-known constellation of Orion. Yonder also, blinking red and green, was the great Mars himself.
But it was not to study the stars that Harry had crept out of the tent, but to breathe fresher air, for there was no wind to-night. Not a branch stirred in the forest, not a leaf moved. The wild beasts had been scared far away, only now and then a lion roared, and the screams of the wild birds filled up the intervals. Dreadfully eerie they are to listen to on a night like this, and in such a lonely scene.
“Eeah—eee—ah—eeah—eeah—ah!” screamed one bird.
“Tak—tak—tak—tak!”—cried another.
“Willikin, willikin, willikin, willikin?” shrieked a third.
Then there are mournful unearthly yells and groans that would make the heart of a novice stand still with dread. He would feel convinced foul murder was being done in the gloomy depths of the forest. (It is possible the monkeys take their part in producing the cries one hears by night in forests of the tropics.)