CHAPTER VIII.
WE DESCEND INTO THE NEST-CAVES.
When we awoke the sun was high in the heavens, and our captain had quitted the room.
“Hilloa!” cried my brother. “Get up, Claud! Make haste, or that fellow Prabu will leave us behind.”
“Not he,” said I, dressing very leisurely; “he has gone to prepare for the gathering.”
“Ah! but he will, though—just to save us from risking our property in the venture.”
“What do you mean, Martin—what property have we?” I asked, taking his words quite literally.
“Why, our necks, to be sure. You call them property, don’t you?” But at that moment Prabu came to tell us the native gatherers were ready to set out for the caves.
The party consisted of half a dozen of the prahu’s men; the two leaders, Kati and Prabu; and an auxiliary force of six of the villagers, who, from a lifelong residence near the caves, were supposed to be acquainted with every nook and cranny. The whole party, with the exception of Martin and I (who, by the way, were attired in loose jackets and trousers of Chinese grass silk), were naked to the waist, which was girdled by a kind of sash, that secured their drawers. Then each, ourselves included, had a small bag suspended from the neck for the nests; a sharp billhook, with which to cut a pathway through the jungle, a long iron spike, a coil of roughly-made rope, strong enough to support the weight of a man; a torch, made of bark and the resins exuded from forest trees, and a flint and steel. In addition, several of the villagers carried two or three bamboo poles of considerable length, and Martin and I had one pistol each, and one creese between us, of which he was the custodian. Thus equipped, we started upon our breakneck expedition.
A long tramp of three or four miles, through thick jungle and tall grass, continually on the lookout for deadly snakes, wading across running streams, now and then falling into holes treacherously hidden by the dank vegetation, and we reached the base of a precipitous cliff; and there we came to a halt, not so much to rest, as for Martin and I to hold an examination of our clothes. “Our clothes” I said!—but we had left the greater portion of them in the bushes and upon the brambles, which had torn them from our bodies.
“Oh, bother!” cried Martin, after a fruitless effort to readjust his upper garment; “we had better strip to it, like the natives;” and in a minute he was bared to the waist, and I had followed his example.