"Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.
"Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and on each other.
"Zounds! vy don't you let me out?" shouted the voice again.
There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the natives, but Nigel's asking "Where are you?" had the effect of inducing them to delay for the answer.
"Here—oonder zee tigre! Kveek, I am suffocat!"
Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the 'tail, and, Avith a force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat, revealing the man of science underneath—alive and well, but dishevelled, scratched, and soiled—also, as deaf as a door-post!
CHAPTER XXII.
A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED.
"It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds, frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time, for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to be the very paradise of the student of nature.