"Are you getting weary of our search, doctor?" I said bitterly.

He turned upon me an angry look, which changed to one of reproach.

"You should not have asked me that, my lad," he said softly. "You are tired or you would not have spoken so bitterly. Wait and see. I only want to direct our energies in the right way. The blacks could go on tramping through the country; we whites must use our brains as well as our legs."

"I--I beg your pardon, doctor!" I cried earnestly.

"All right, my lad," he said quietly. "Now for getting back to camp.

Where must our bearers be?"

He adjusted the gla.s.s and stood carefully examining the broad landscape before us, till all at once he uttered an exclamation, and handed the gla.s.s to me.

"See what you make of that spot where there seems to be a ma.s.s of rock rising out of the plain, and a thin thread of flashing water running by its side. Yonder!" he continued, pointing. "About ten miles away, I should say."

I took the gla.s.s, and after a good deal of difficulty managed to catch sight of the lump of rock he had pointed out. There was the gleaming thread of silver, too, with, plainly seen through the clear atmosphere and gilded by the sun, quite a tiny cloud of vapour slowly rising in the air.

"Is that another hot spring, doctor?" I said, as I kept my gla.s.s fixed upon the spot; "or--"

"Our blacks' fire," said the doctor. "It might be either; or in addition it might be a fire lit by enemies, or at all events savages; but as it is in the direction in which we are expecting to find our camp, and there seem to be no enemies near, I am in favour of that being camp. Come: time is slipping by. Let's start downward now."

I nodded and turned to Jack Penny, who all this while had been resting his back by lying flat upon the ground, and that he was asleep was proved by the number of ants and other investigating insects which were making a tour all over his long body; Gyp meanwhile looking on, and sniffing at anything large, such as a beetle, with the result of chasing the visitor away.

We roused Jack and started, having to make a detour so as to secure Jimmy's kangaroo, which he shouldered manfully, for though it offered us no temptation we knew that it would delight the men in camp.

The descent was much less laborious than the ascent, but it took a long time, and the sun was fast sinking lower, while as we approached the plains every few hundred yards seemed to bring us into a warmer stratum of air, while we kept missing the pleasant breeze of the higher ground.

If we could have made a bee-line right to where the smoke rose the task would have been comparatively easy, but we had to avoid this chasm, that piled-up ma.s.s of rocks, and, as we went lower, first th.o.r.n.y patches of scrub impeded our pa.s.sage, and lower still there was the impenetrable forest.

I was getting fearfully tired and Jack Penny had for a long time been perfectly silent, while Jimmy, who was last, took to uttering a low groan every now and then, at times making it a sigh as he looked imploringly at me, evidently expecting me to share his heavy load.

I was too tired and selfish, I'm afraid, and I trudged on till close upon sundown, when it occurred to me that I had not heard Jimmy groan or sigh for some time, and turning to speak to him I waited till he came up, walking easily and lightly, with his spear acting as a staff.

"Why, Jimmy; where's the kangaroo?" I said.

"Wallaby ole man, Ma.s.s Joe?" he said, nodding his head on one side like a sparrow.

"Yes; where is it?"

"Bad un!" he said sharply. "Jimmy smell up poo boo! Bad; not good a eat. No get camp a night. Jimmy fro um all away!"

"Thrown it away!" I cried.

"Yes; bad ums. Jimmy fro um all away!"

"You lazy humbug!" I said with a laugh, in which he good-humouredly joined.

"Yess--ess--Jimmy laze humbug! Fro um all away."

"But I say, look here, Jimmy!" I said anxiously, "what do you mean?"

"Light fire here; go asleep! Findum camp a morning. All away, right away. Not here; no!"

He ended by shaking his head, and I called to the doctor:

"Jimmy says we shall not find the camp!" I said hastily; "and that we are going wrong."

"I know it," he said quietly; "but we cannot get through this forest patch, so we must go wrong for a time, and then strike off to the right."

But we found no opportunity of striking off to the right. Everywhere it was impenetrable forest, and at last we had to come to a halt on the edge, for the darkness was black, and to have gone on meant feeling our way step by step.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

HOW I GOT INTO SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES.

It is not a pleasant place to pa.s.s a night, on the ground at the edge of a vast forest, inhabited by you know not what noxious beasts, while if you light a fire to scare them off you always do so with the idea that in scaring one enemy you may be giving notice to a worse where he may find you to make a prisoner or put you to death.

However we determined to risk being seen by savages, the more readily that we had gone so far now without seeing one, and in a short time a ruddy blaze was gilding the forest edge and the great sparks were cracking around the trees.

We had calculated upon being back at camp that night, so we had eaten all our food, and now, as we sat there by the fire hungry and tired, I began to think that we might have done worse than cut off the kangaroo's tail before Jimmy had thrown it away.

Poor Jimmy! He too seemed to be bitterly regretting the idleness that had made him give up his self-imposed task, and the dismal hungry looks he kept giving me from time to time were ludicrous in the extreme.

"Never mind, Joe," said the doctor smiling; "tighten your belt, my lad, and get to sleep. That's the best way to forget your hunger. You'll be sure to begin dreaming about feasts."

The doctor was right; I lay hungrily awake for a short time, and then dropped off to sleep, to dream of delicious fruits, and cooking, and the smell of meat burning, and I awoke with a start to find that there was a very peculiar odour close to my nose, for a piece of wood must have shot a spark of its burning body into the s.h.a.ggy head of poor Jimmy, who was sleeping happily unconscious, while a tiny sc.r.a.p of wood was glowing and the hair sending forth curls of smoke.

I jumped up, seized Jimmy by the hair, and crushed out the spark, awaking that worthy so sharply that he sprang up waddy in hand, caught me by the throat, and threw me back, swinging his war-club over his head to strike a tremendous blow.

He saw who it was in time and dropped his weapon.

"What a fool, Jimmy, yes! What a fool Jimmy sleep. Pull Jimmy hair, jig jag. Hallo! What a want?"

It took some time to make him understand what had been wrong, but even when he did comprehend he seemed to be annoyed with me for waking him out of a pleasant dream, probably about damper and mutton, for the saving of so insignificant a thing as his hair, which would have soon grown again.

Jimmy lay down again grumbling, but was soon asleep, and on comparing notes with the doctor I found I was so near my time for taking my turn at watching and keeping up the fire that I exchanged places with him.

As is often the case, the troubles and depressing influences of the night departed with the day, and setting out very hungry, but by no means in bad spirits, we soon found a more open part, where the forest was beginning to end, and after about three hours' walking we reached our little camp, where we had no difficulty in satisfying our cravings, our ordinary food being supplemented by a great bunch of plantains which one of the blacks had found and saved for us.

After a good rest, during which the doctor and I had talked well over our future course, we determined to go right on as we had come for another four days and then to strike due south to hit the sh.o.r.e, always supposing that we encountered nothing fresh to alter our plans.

"And I'm sure we shall," I said to myself, for somehow, I cannot tell you why--and perhaps after all it was fancy--I felt sure that we should not be long now before we met with some adventure.

I did not like to say anything of this kind to the doctor, for I felt that if I did he would laugh at me; but I took the first opportunity I could find of confiding in Jack Penny.

He looked down at me and then seemed to wave himself to and fro, looking at me in a curious dreamy fashion.

"Do you think that? do you feel like as if something is going to happen?"