"I will tell you. You are an enthusiastic botanist and entomologist, are you not? Very well, then. This island abounds with unclassified flora and fauna. I will have an expedition fitted out to-day, and to-morrow morning we will leave the settlement and plunge into the interior. I expect a week's absence from worry will work a wonderful change in you. At any rate, we'll try it. What have you to say to my proposition?"
"I should like it above all things," I answered eagerly. And, indeed, apart from the scientific chances it would afford me, a trip anywhere in her company could not be anything else than delightful.
Having gained her point, she rose to go.
"I may consider it settled, I suppose?" she said. "At daybreak to-morrow morning we are to mount our ponies in the square down yonder, and set off. You need not bother about rifles or any impedimenta of that kind. I will see that you are well provided."
So saying she withdrew, and I saw no more of her that day. The rest of the afternoon I spent in preparing my specimen boxes for the trip, and when I sought my couch at night it was to dream of birds and beetles of the most glorious colouring, size, and variety.
True to our arrangement, daybreak next morning found me, booted and spurred, striding towards the village square. Early as I was at the rendezvous, Alie was there before me, mounted on a neat bay pony, and evidently awaiting my coming. She wished me "good morning," and then pointed to the group of pack-horses standing at a little distance in charge of half a dozen men.
"We shall not want for provisions during our travels," she said, with a happy laugh; and as she did so she signed to one of her attendants to lead up a pony she had reserved for my use. "The cook and his staff," she continued, "have gone on ahead of us to prepare our breakfast, so now if you are ready we'll start."
The order to march was thereupon given, and we immediately set off up the mountain track. Within five minutes of starting the settlement lay hidden behind the hill, with all its painful memories and anxieties, and we found ourselves surrounded by the primeval forest. The mysterious silence of the dawn still held the landscape, and all nature seemed waiting for the sun to make his appearance before beginning the business of the day. Here and there in the dips, and upon the pools, heavy mists wreathed and curled themselves, suggestive of malaria and a hundred other unpleasantnesses. Before we have been riding an hour, however, the sun rose in all his majesty; in a trice the forest woke to life and activity; hordes of monkeys leaped from branch to branch above our heads, in many cases racing us nearly a hundred yards before they left us; gigantic swine crashed through the undergrowth, almost under our ponies' noses; while birds of every plumage flew, from tree to tree, across our path. A moment before the world had seemed dead, now it was full and brimming over with vitality.
When the first half-dozen miles were overcome the aspect of the country began to change; it became more open, and we continually emerged from timber on to highly-grassed plains, where pig and deer of many kinds were to be seen feeding placidly. Towards eight o'clock the trend of the country lay upward, and continued so until we had mounted to a considerable elevation, when an extensive panorama was unfolded before us. The island must indeed have been a large one if it could be judged by the extensive views we had presented to us of it; only on the settlement side could I see the sea, while on the other the forest rolled away as far as the eye could reach.
At half-past eight, or between that and nine o'clock, we commenced to descend again, following the course of a pretty stream, until our guides came back to tell us that we were approaching the spot where it had been arranged we should partake of breakfast.