“Hark!” cried Johnny, “what a charming echo. Listen again,” and he shouted “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” softly responded the echo, and almost in the same breath a harsh voice, apparently close at hand, and which was evidently not an echo, cried out, “Hillioh—oh!”
We started, and gazed around us, and at each other, in astonishment, but we could see nothing from which this strange exclamation could proceed.
“That,” said Johnny, in a trembling whisper, and seizing Browne’s hand, “that is the voice of the wild Frenchman I heard in the woods near Castle-hill.”
“Yes,” answered Max, gravely, “who knows but there are cannibals here? You had better be careful, Johnny, how you hurrah in the woods.” Max’s manner made me suspect that he possessed some clue to the mystery which the rest of us lacked.
“I don’t care,” answered Johnny, stoutly, while the apprehensive glances which he cast around on every side, hardly agreed with his valiant words, “I shall hurrah in spite of all the savages on the island.”
“Hillioh!—Hillioh!” yelled the same voice, more fiercely than before.
Max burst into a fit of laughter, when following the direction of his eye, we looked up, and espied an enormous parrot perched upon a purau branch, directly over our heads, from which he eyed us with a disdainful and truculent air.
“There’s your wild Frenchman at last, Johnny,” said Max, “I expect he’ll call us to account presently for our treatment of his hat.”
“Don’t give up de sheep!” screamed the parrot.