“No; we must go on allowance now—we’ll keep half for to-morrow’s breakfast, because, perhaps, we shan’t be able to shoot anything to-night—that’s how explorers manage.”
When supper was over, the moon had risen, and the boys went down with their gun to the creek to see if they could shoot a duck. The dark water was plated in patches with ribbed and circling silver, and, just in the middle of one of the patches, up came a black something like a bottle.
“Hush! it’s a water-mole,” whispered Harry; but before he could point his gun at it the queer duck-billed thing had gone under again. The boys found no ducks, and did not go very far to look for them. They were tired, and had had their supper, and were sure of a breakfast. So they soon went back to their fire, piled more sticks on it, and then, snuggling under their blanket, fell asleep. They said their prayers before they fell asleep beneath the bright moon and stars, and, as they said them, they thought for the first time that they had not done quite right in leaving Wonga-Wonga without letting any one there know that they were going.
When they woke in the morning, the sun was up, and the glossy magpies were hopping about the logs, and everything looked cheerful. The boys took a dip in the creek, and boiled their tea, and had their breakfast, and then away they went again in high spirits, although now they had no food except what they might shoot or catch. The kingfishers in their blue coats and yellow waistcoats were darting backwards and forwards over the water, and the fussy little sedge-warblers were dodging about the reeds, and twittering a little bit of every bird’s song they could think of; but they weren’t worth powder and shot. By noon—they could tell the time pretty well by the sun—both Harry and Donald felt very hungry, for they had had a very early breakfast. They began to wish that they had saved some of the salmon for their dinner; but just then the Endeavour was gliding between banks that had no tree or scrub, but only tufts of dry coarse grass on them, and Donald saw a bandicoot run out of one of the tufts. Up went the gun to his shoulder, and in a second Mr. Bandicoot had rolled over dead upon his back. A bandicoot is a very big brown kind of rat—nicer to eat than any rabbit. The boys soon made a fire, and baked the bandicoot in the ashes, in his skin; and they relished him ten times more than the preserved salmon. Rat, and tea without sugar or milk, may not seem a very inviting bill of fare, but you know the Delectus says that hunger is the best sauce, and, besides, baked bandicoot anybody might like.
Harry and Donald had some more shooting that day. About a mile from the place where they had taken their dinner they found a break in the creek-bank, filled up with tall rusty bulrushes. They got out of the cot, and pushed their way through the rushes, looking out very carefully for snakes, and sometimes sinking into the slush below the baked upper earth, just as if their feet had gone through a pie-crust, and on the other side they found a lagoon full of water-fowl. Then they forced the Endeavour through the rushes—she made a great black steaming furrow in the yellow ground—and launched her down the dry border of the lagoon, and pulled about in her, popping away in turns, and fancying themselves in Fairy Land. There were two or three black swans cruising proudly backwards and forwards, and fleets of piebald geese, and grey geese, and sooty ducks, and silvery ducks, and chestnut ducks with emerald necks, and musk ducks with double chins, and all their bodies under water. It was very funny to see their heads and necks moving about, as if they had lost their bodies and were looking for them. There were coots, too, on the banks of the lagoon, and purple herons and white herons holding up one leg as if they were trying how long they could do it for a wager; and ibises with untidy tufts of feathers on their breasts, that looked like costermongers’ dirty cravats dangling out of their waistcoats, and native companions, great light blue cranes lifting their long legs out of the mud, and trumpeting “Look out!” to one another, when the Endeavour was coming their way. There were beautiful water-lilies on the lagoon, also, with broad round leaves like shields of malachite, and great blossoms of alabaster, and blue and rose-coloured china. The boys, however, were too busy with the water-fowl to look at the water-flowers. They kept on popping away until the moon had been up for some time, and the bitterns were booming in the swamps all round, and the nankeen cranes were stalking about, nodding their white crest-plumes like Life Guardsmen, and croaking, “Now we’ll make a night of it.”
When Harry and Donald left off shooting, they found that they had fired away all their powder and shot except two charges, and that they had got three little ducks. They made a very merry supper off one, baking it on the lagoon bank, as they had baked the bandicoot, and then they went to sleep by their fire. Early in the morning, just as the laughing jackass was hooting before daybreak, Donald woke. The moon had gone down, and so had the fire, and Donald, though it was summer, felt very chilly.
He got up to stamp his feet and stir up the fire. What do you think he saw? An iguana—that’s a great lean lizard—sneaking off with the two ducks that were to serve for breakfast and dinner. Donald flung a hot log at him, but it only made the lizard run the faster. Plenty of red sparks were scattered about, but the two ducklings were not dropped.
“Hech, weel,” said Donald (he had picked up a little Scotch from his father). “it’s nae guid greetin’ ower spilt milk;” and he lay down again and slept like a top, until Harry woke him, asking him what ever could have become of the ducks? They had to breakfast on tea alone that morning. They tried to shoot a duck, but they had made the birds wild, and they were very anxious not to waste their precious powder, and so they did not succeed.
When they had hauled the cot into the creek again, they were half inclined to go back to Wonga-Wonga, but they determined to go on for one day more.
They looked about eagerly for something to shoot, but everything except insects seemed to have vanished from the creek. On both sides there were stony ridges with scarcely a blade of grass on them. One landrail ran along the bank, calling out “ship, ship,” as if it was hailing the Endeavour, but Donald missed it when he fired at it. Harry took the gun then, and said he would try to shoot a fish. He saw something black wriggling about in the water, which he thought was an eel, and he fired and hit it; but it was a snake, and it bit itself before it died; so they were obliged to leave it in the water, instead of cooking it on shore and getting a dinner as white and delicate as a roast chicken.