Chapter Seventeen.
A Native Chieftain’s Visit to Cloudland.
The travellers, safely shut up in that impregnable fortress, the hull of the Flying Fish, passed the night in peaceful slumber, undisturbed, in the confidence begotten of a sense of perfect security, by the weird cries of the night birds, the incessant howling of the jackals, the maniacal laugh of the prowling hyena, the occasional roar of the lion, the loud whirr of myriads of insects, the croaking of bull-frogs, and the other multitudinous nocturnal sounds which floated in through the open windows of their state-rooms. They were early astir in the morning, eager to commence their investigations as are school-boys to plunge into the enjoyments of a long-anticipated holiday. Moved by a common impulse, they all went out on deck to witness the ruins under the effect of sunrise previous to their plunge into the matutinal bath; and it was whilst they were admiring the exquisite beauty of the scene that the keen-eyed colonel became conscious of the fact that they were beleaguered by a host of lurking savages.
“Umph!” he commented, “I expected as much.”
“You expected as much as what? What is it, Lethbridge?” asked Sir Reginald.
“Look there,” was the reply; “and there, and there, and there. Do you notice anything peculiar in the appearance of the undergrowth about us, especially where it is thickest?”
“N–o, I can’t say that I do—unless you refer to those occasional quick gleams which come and go here and there. What are they? At first I thought it was the flash of the sun on the dew-laden grass and leaves as they wave in the wind, but it can hardly be that, or we should see more of it.”
“No,” said the colonel, “it is not that; it is the occasional glint of the sun on a native spear-head. I have been through the Kaffir war, and have seen the same thing before, though not so distinctly as now, our present towering height above the ground giving us an advantage in that respect which we sadly lacked before. We are beset by the natives. You cannot see one, I know, but they are all about us, all the same. Ah! look there, just behind that magnolia bush. Do you see a small dark object rising slowly into view? That is the head of a savage, and he is—ah! now he has ducked again, having caught sight of us.”