"The voice of the ostrich is a deep, hollow, rumbling sound, so much resembling the roar of a lion as to be occasionally mistaken for it. But what does Jack mean by waving his cap and beckoning in that excited fashion? What has the boy found, I wonder!"
He ran a little toward us, shouting:
"Eggs, father! Ostriches' eggs! a huge nest full—do come quick!"
We all hastened to the spot, and in a slight hollow of the ground beheld more than twenty eggs, as large as an infant's head.
The idea of carrying more than two away with us was preposterous, although the boys, forgetting what the weight would be, seriously contemplated clearing the nest.
They were satisfied when a kind of landmark had been set up, so that if we returned we might easily find the nest.
As each egg weighed about three pounds, the boys soon found the burden considerable, even when tied into a handkerchief and carried like a basket. To relieve them, I cut a strong elastic heath stick, and suspending an egg in its sling at each end, laid the bent stick over Jack's shoulder, and like a Dutch dairy-maid with her milk pails, he stepped merrily along without inconvenience.
We presently reached a marshy place, surrounding a little pool evidently fed by the stream which Knips had discovered. The soft ground was trodden and marked by the footsteps of many different sorts of animals; we saw tracks of buffaloes, antelopes, onagas or quaggas, but no trace whatever of any kind of serpent; hitherto our journey in search of monster reptiles had been signalized by very satisfactory failure.
By this brook we sat down to rest and take some food; Fangs presently disappeared, and Jack calling to his pet discovered him gnawing at something which he had dug from the marsh. Taking it for a root of some sort, Jack brought it for my inspection. I dipped it in water to clear off the mud, and to my surprise found a queer little living creature, no bigger than half an apple, in my hand. It was a small tortoise.
"A tortoise, I declare!" cried Fritz. "What a long way from the sea. How came it here, I wonder?"