“Do you know, I shouldn’t wonder if you were right; and it’s a pity, too, for we shall have to live a good deal on such fare, I believe. However, I suppose we shall get used to it.—But I say, boys, isn’t it jolly to be out here living like savages? I declare it seems to me like a dream or a romance.—Just look, Ralph, at the strange wild creepers that are festooned overhead, and the great tropical leaves behind us, and the clear sky above, with the moon—ah! the moon; yes, that’s one comfort—the moon is unchanged. The same moon that smiles down upon us through a tangled mesh-work of palm-leaves and wild vines and monkeys’ tails, is peeping down the chimney-pots of London and Edinburgh and Dublin!”
“Why, Peterkin, you must have studied hard in early life to be so good a geographer.”
“Rather,” observed Peterkin.
“Yes; and look at the strange character of the tree-stems,” said I, unwilling to allow the subject to drop. “See those huge palmettoes like—like—”
“Overgrown cabbages,” suggested Peterkin; and he continued, “Observe the quaint originality of form in the body and limbs of that bloated old spider that is crawling up your leg, Ralph!”
I started involuntarily, for there is no creature of which I have a greater abhorrence than a spider.
“Where is it? oh! I see,” and the next moment I secured my prize and placed it with loathing, but interest, in my entomological box.
At that moment a hideous roar rang through the woods, seemingly close behind us. We all started to our feet, and seizing our rifles, which lay beside us ready loaded, cocked them and drew close together round the fire.
“This won’t do, lads,” said Jack, after a few minutes’ breathless suspense, during which the only sound we could hear was the beating of our own hearts; “we have allowed the fire to get too low, and we’ve forgotten to adopt our friend the trader’s advice, and make two fires.”
So saying, Jack laid down his rifle, and kicking the logs with his heavy boot, sent up such a cloud of bright sparks as must certainly have scared the wild animal, whatever it was, away; for we heard no more of it that night.