To have fired the forest could have done no good, only birds and beasts and the old witch would have suffered. So before the sudden darkness of a tropical night fell, the men entered the boats and shoved off.
One boat contained the remains of their unfortunate shipmate, and next morning steam was got up, and Tom sleeps in the green depths of the coral sea.
How quickly such things are forgotten in the Service. Tom's clothes were sold by auction, but his ditty box and its trinkets of value, including a letter from the lass who had loved Tom, were kept, and sent home to England, to his old mother. These trinkets and the letter were sacred things, they were holy, no man on board would have bought them. Then everything went on us usual on board the Breezy.
CHAPTER XXII
IN SLUMBERING WOODS--KEP CAPTURED BY SAVAGES
Brawny Surgeon McTavish, and almost equally sturdy Stormalong, with Kep, had many a ramble among the woods and hills of New Guinea. They were collecting specimens, they were studying Nature in the concrete. God's glorious and thrilling fantasia of woods and wilds and water and of rolling tree-clad hills. But into the deepest darkness of the forests they seldom penetrated, tempting though it looked. For it was not merely bright-winged birds and strange mammals that these stately forests gave homes to, but wandering savages, as implacably fierce as any the world contains.
And still, as seen from the sea, these landscapes looked so peaceful and serene, one could scarcely believed that any evil thing could dwell therein. There was a charm to a mind like the doctor's about its very stillness, that often lured him farther into it than it was at all times safe to venture. Wherever he went, the others would follow.
Creeping one day through the slumbering woods and by the broad river's banks, they came suddenly upon a somewhat elderly chief, who was seated on a rock, with a fish net depending from a long rod. In the evening of his days he was enjoying himself apparently at this placid sport. With the exception of beads and bangles, and his massive crown of feather-adorned hair, he was naked as the lizards that crawled on the adjoining trees.
Beside him lay bow and arrows and spear, while an ugly knife was fastened to his girdle of rope.
Our heroes had been a good ten miles into the interior that day, and were now returning, Kep carrying specimens of flora and fauna, Stormalong with a wild pig slung over his back.