In spite of their impatience to begin their work upon the game, our young friends could not help pausing for a few moments in order to admire the magnificent spectacle before them, and to enjoy the delightful freshness of that glorious time which immediately precedes a sunrise; when suddenly, very far in the distance, was heard the confused noise of a most frightful tumult.
“There they go!” cried Verstork, “those are our beaters, what a row the fellows are making to be sure.”
The natives were indeed hard at it, springing their rattles, banging on bamboos, yelling and screaming in a manner which drowned every other sound in nature, especially in that solemn morning hour when the orb of day is just about to rise.
At first the noise was heard as a mere confused hum very far away in the distance; but, as it gradually drew nearer and nearer, it became so exciting that even poor van Nerekool, forgetting his woes for a while, ran up and down clutching his rifle with trembling hand, and some of his companions, more excited even than he was, had their weapons at full cock, ready to open fire at a moment’s notice.
“Now then, my friends,” said Verstork, trying to calm down all this unnecessary flurry; “pray keep quiet. We have plenty of time before us. Please all keep cool, or we shall have some accident with those firearms.”
“Are we in a good position here?” asked Grashuis.
“We are standing too close together it strikes me,” remarked van Beneden.
“I intend to take you a little further into the ravine,” said Verstork.
So they all advanced some fifty or hundred yards along a steep pathway which ran winding down through shaggy bushes and rocky boulders. Just by the side of that rugged path, the brook Banjoe Pahit began its downward course along its bed of rocks. It was a wonderfully beautiful little stream; its waters of the purest crystal went dancing from crag to crag, forming, in one place, a pleasant little basin or pool, at another tumbling down in foaming cataracts and splashing waterfalls, then, suddenly and mysteriously, disappearing altogether for a while amidst the wild shrubs and rugged boulders, and then a little further on, springing up again to renew its brawling and wanton play. The scene in the Djoerang Pringapoes was as wild and savage as possible, but marvellously picturesque withal. When the party had clambered down about a third part of the slope, the massive walls of rock which, up to that point, completely hemmed in the entrance to the ravine and which formed a kind of slit, suddenly ran back like the sides of a funnel, while they continued grandly and majestically to tower up into the sky.
The bottom of the ravine, however, as well as its walls, bore abundant evidence of great natural convulsions. Huge boulders were flung about in it at random in all directions, the stems of the trees which grew there were twisted and curled up into lumps and knots and were still bearing tufts of withered grass and nests of dry branches; the smoothly polished rocks also amply testified that when the north-east wind opened the sluice gates of heaven and the water-floods came down in torrents from the heights—the Banjoe Pahit could howl and roar along, and form dreadful currents and whirlpools; and that, at such times, it was well to keep out of the now quiet defile.