“But will you positively return to Port Said?”
“For the present we both must return there.”
“To our little papa,” sighed the girl.
And immediately her eyes were veiled by sadness and homesickness. As good luck would have it, a swarm of beautiful gray parrots, with pink heads and rose-colored down under their wings, flew toward them. The children immediately forgot what they had been talking about, and their eyes followed the flight of the birds.
The flock of parrots flew over a group of Euphorbia and came down upon a neighboring sycamore, through the branches of which could be heard voices that sounded like a chattering council, or a terrible quarrel.
“These are the parrots that learn to speak the most readily,” said Stasch. “As soon as we make a longer halt I will do my best to try to catch one for you.”
“Oh, Stasch, I thank you,” cried Nell joyfully. “I will call him ‘Daisy.’ ”
Mea and Kali, who meanwhile had been plucking the fruit from a breadfruit tree, now loaded up the horses with them, and the little caravan continued on its way.
In the afternoon it clouded over again, and several times there was a short shower that filled all the crevices in the ground with water. Kali prophesied a heavy storm, and it occurred to Stasch that in this case the gorge, which had become narrower and narrower, would not be a safe resting-place for the night, as it would most likely become the bed of the stream. So he decided to spend the night above the gorge, and Nell was delighted at this, especially when Kali, who had been sent out to reconnoiter, returned, announcing that not far from where they were was a forest of many kinds of trees, in which little monkeys were disporting themselves; but these monkeys were not ugly and vicious as those they had seen before. Therefore as soon as they struck a place where the walls of the cliff were low and not too steep they led the horses up, and when it was dark they prepared for night. Nell’s tent was put up in a somewhat higher and drier place underneath a large ant-hill, which completely barred the entrance from one side and strengthened the hedge that led toward it.
In the vicinity stood an enormous tree with wide-spreading branches and heavy foliage, which would shelter them sufficiently from the rain. In front of the hedge grew scattered groups of trees, and further off was a dense woods filled with underbrush, above which could be seen the tops of strange palms resembling giant fans spread out like the tail of a peacock.