“Yes, most certainly,” answered Ned, as he carefully withdrew the bullet from his carbine, and substituted for it a charge of small shot. “The fellows are certain to grow careless, sooner or later, and afford us a chance to give them the slip, even if we do not fall in with a man-of-war and get taken. Keep up your spirits, Miss Stanhope; keep up your spirits and your courage, I say, for I am always thinking and planning, and I never mean to rest satisfied until I have taken you out of the hands of those wretches and safe back to England again.”
“You are very good to say so, Mr Damerell, nay more than good,” answered Sibylla frankly, “and come what may, I shall never, never forget your constant watchful care.”
“Oh, don’t say too much about that,” answered Ned cheerfully. “I look upon you almost as a second sister, you know, and I am only doing for you just exactly what I should wish to be done for my sister Eva if she were placed in a similar position to yours. And as long as you are compelled to remain on board the Cloud, I hope you will trust me as fully and as implicitly as if I were your brother; it will perhaps make you feel less lonely, you know, if it serves no other good purpose. And now, where is my bird? I am quite ready for him.”
The creature was still hopping about among the branches of a tree almost directly overhead, apparently feeding on the fruit or berries which it found there; and taking careful aim, Ned fired. The report of the carbine went echoing back and forth between the cliffs in the most astounding manner, raising a tremendous disturbance, not only by its reverberations along the cliffs on both sides of the basin, but also from the cries of the countless startled birds which suddenly appeared in the air, and the excited chattering of the equally startled monkeys. As the smoke from the piece blew away, Ned saw his quarry tumbling from branch to branch, and bough to bough, until it finally brought up in a small bush which overhung the water some fifty feet above its surface.
“Killed him, by all that’s lucky!” exclaimed Ned joyously. “Now, if you do not mind being left in the boat a moment by yourself whilst I slip aloft there—I will make the painter fast to this sapling so that you may not go adrift—I will secure my prize.”
“But will it not be dangerous for you to climb up there?” protested Sibylla apprehensively.
“If I find it so I will not persevere in my attempt,” answered Ned laughingly, as he grasped a bough and swung himself up on to a projecting ledge of rock.
For a few yards of the ascent Ned’s figure was clearly visible; then, as he ascended still higher, Sibylla caught sight of him only at intervals, and soon afterwards he vanished altogether among the greenery, though his upward progress could still be traced here and there by the swaying of the bushes, but at length this also ceased, and then a dreadful silence and feeling of lonesomeness seemed to enwrap the fair girl as in the folds of a sable mantle. Minute followed minute with painful slowness as it seemed to Sibylla, and every instant she expected to see Ned’s outstretched arm appear from the midst of the shrubs clinging aloft there to grasp the body of the bird. But nothing of the sort occurred, and at length, after a long and tedious period of painful apprehension, she ventured to call his name.
No answer.
Sibylla waited a minute or two, and then called again.