"Well, then," said Mr. Wolston, "if we have no choice, let us risk it and break our way right through this forest to the other side. If we can't do it in one day, we will take two, or we will take three; but we will get to our goal."
The antelope's meat, done to a turn on the live embers, some cassava cakes, and a handful of fruit gathered close by, bananas, guavas, and cinnamon apples, formed the meal, for which an hour's halt sufficed. Then they picked up their arms and game-bags again, and all three plunged into the forest, guiding themselves by the pocket compass.
Marching was easy enough among these straight-stemmed, widely-spaced pines and firs, for the ground was fairly level and carpeted with grass, or rather a kind of scanty moss, which was almost free from brambles and undergrowth. It would have been far otherwise in a semi-tropical forest, where the trees are entangled by parasites and knotted together by creepers. There were no serious obstacles to interfere with free movement in this vast pine wood. There was, it is true, no beaten path to be followed, not even one beaten by animals; but the trees allowed of free passage, although necessitating occasional détours.
Although game was now scarce, Jack and Mr. Wolston, and Ernest, too, were obliged to use their guns during this stage. It was not a matter of carnivorous animals, lions, tigers, panthers or pumas, some of which had been seen near the Promised Land and in the country round about Pearl Bay. But it was a breed as numerous as it was mischievous.
"The beggars!" Jack exclaimed. "One might almost think that the whole lot came to take shelter here after we drove them out of the woods at Wood Grange and Sugar-cane Grove!"
And after having received several fir-cones, hurled by a strong arm, in the chest, he made haste to let fly a couple of shots in reply.
A fusillade had to be kept up for a whole hour, at the risk of exhausting the ammunition carried for the trip. A score of monkeys lay on the ground, seriously or mortally wounded. When they came toppling down from branch to branch, Fawn sprang upon those that had not got strength left to escape, and finished them off by throttling them.
"If it were cocoanuts the rascals were bombarding us with," Jack remarked, "it would not be half bad."
"By Jove!" Mr. Wolston answered, "I prefer fir-cones to cocoanuts. They are not so hard."
"That is so; but there is no nourishment in them," Jack replied. "Whereas the cocoanut is meat and drink too."