“Don’t be alarmed,” said my father. “The savages, finding that we are prepared, are not likely to attack us.”
“But there is no shelter for them nearer than the neighbouring bush; and that cry came from a spot close at hand,” observed Mudge. “With your leave, Captain Rayner, I will take two men with me and soon rout them out of their lurking-place.”
“Depend upon it, they are far away by this time,” observed my father.
Scarcely had he spoken, when again there came that fearful yell, sounding like what I could conceive to be the horrible laughter of a maniac.
“Why, I do believe it comes from some fellow who has climbed into this very tree,” cried Mudge; “and I’ll take the liberty of shooting him if he doesn’t come down of his own accord.”
I had observed all this time that Pullingo sat very quietly by the fire, watching what we were about, and merely uttering the word “Gogobera;” but whether that was the name of the leader of the savages surrounding us, or of some supposed malign spirit, we could not tell. I now saw, however, that he was quietly laughing, evidently highly diverted by the alarm these strange sounds had produced among us.
“The black knows something about it,” I sang out. “I shouldn’t be surprised if, after all, it was one of those necromancers he was telling us about playing off his tricks. Paddy, do you try and get him to tell us who has been making those hideous noises.”
Pullingo quickly understood Paddy, and getting up, went towards the branch of the tree at which Mudge and several others were looking up. Taking out his boomerang, he stepped a few paces back; then away it flew till it took a course upwards and penetrated amid the boughs, and the next instant down came a large bird, with a black head and a peculiarly strong beak.
“Dat make laughee,” he observed composedly.
We found that our nocturnal visitor was no other than that well-known member of the feathered tribe, the “laughing jackass;” more scientifically denominated the “giant kingfisher.” When I saw the bird, I was very sorry that it had been killed; for, notwithstanding its discordant voice, it is a remarkably sociable and useful creature, as we afterwards discovered. It destroys snakes, which it catches by the tail, and then crushes their head with its powerful beak; it also renders an essential service to the settlers who want to get up early, by shouting out its strange notes to welcome the approach of dawn—from which peculiarity it is also called the “settler’s clock.” We soon discovered that gogobera was the name given to it by the natives. They, at all events, have no superstitious feeling regarding it; for Pullingo, plucking the bird, soon had it roasting before the fire; and, to the best of my belief, he had devoured the whole of it before the morning.