Blown to Bits or The Lonely Man of Rakata Part 21

"It looks as if it had," returned Nigel; "I have seen a tree of the same kind near the coast. How came it to grow in this way?"

"I know not. It is zought zat zey spring from a seed dropped by a bird into zee fork of anozer tree. Zee seed grows, sends his roots down ant his branches up. Ven his roots reach zee ground he lays hold, ant, ven strong enough, kills his support--zus returning efil for good, like a zankless dependent. Ah! zere is much resemblance between plants and animals! Com', ve must feed here," said the professor, resting his gun against one of the roots, "I had expected to find zee booterflies sooner. It cannot be helped. Let us make zis our banqueting-hall. Ve vill have a Durian to refresh us, ant here is a bandy tree which seems to have ripe vones on it.--Go," he added, turning to the orang-utan, "and send down von or two."

The creature looked helplessly incapable, pitifully unwilling, scratching its side the while. Evidently it was a lazy monkey.

"Do you hear?" said Verkimier, sternly.

The orang moved uneasily, but still declined to go.

Turning sharply on it, the professor bent down, placed a hand on each of his knees and stared through the blue goggles into the animal's face.

This was more than it could stand. With a very bad grace it hobbled off to the Durian tree, ascended it with a sort of lazy, lumbering facility, and hurled down some of the fruit without warning those below to look out.

"My little frond is obstinate sometimes," remarked the naturalist, picking up the fruit, "but ven I bring my gla.s.ses to bear on him he alvays gives in. I never found zem fail. Come now; eat, an' ve vill go to vork again. Ve must certainly find zee booterflies somevere before night."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DO YOU HEAR?" SAID VERKIMIER, STERNLY.--PAGE 187.]

But Verkimier was wrong. It was his destiny not to find the b.u.t.terflies that night, or in that region at all, for he and his companion had not quite finished their meal when a Dyak youth came running up to them saying that he had been sent by the Rajah to order their immediate return to the village.

"Alas! ve most go. It is dancherous to disobey zee Rajah--ant I am sorry--very sorry--zat I cannot show you zee booterflies to-day. No matter.--Go" (to the Dyak youth), "tell your chief ve vill come. Better lock zee next time!"

CHAPTER XV.

HUNTING THE GREAT MAN-MONKEY.

Although Professor Verkimier had promised to return at once, he was compelled to encamp in the forest, being overtaken by night before he could reach the river and procure a boat.

Next morning they started at daybreak. The country over which they pa.s.sed had again changed its character and become more hilly. On the summits of many of the hills Dyak villages could be seen, and rice fields were met with as they went along. Several gullies and rivulets were crossed by means of native bamboo bridges, and the professor explained as he went along the immense value of the bamboo to the natives. With it they make their suspension bridges, build their houses, and procure narrow planking for their floors. If they want broader planks they split a large bamboo on one side and flatten it out to a plank of about eighteen inches wide. Portions of hollow bamboo serve as receptacles for milk or water. If a precipice stops a path, the Dyaks will not hesitate to construct a bamboo path along the face of it, using branches of trees wherever convenient from which to hang the path, and every crevice or notch in the rocks to receive the ends of the bamboos by which it is supported.

Honey-bees in Borneo hang their combs, to be out of danger no doubt, under the branches of the Tappan, which towers above all the other trees of the forest. But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder--which can be prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan--and storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the bra.s.s wire, rings, gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate themselves. When travelling, the Dyaks use bamboos as cooking vessels in which to boil rice and other vegetables; as jars in which to preserve honey, sugar, etc., or salted fish and fruit. Split bamboos form aqueducts by which water is conveyed to the houses. A small neatly carved piece of bamboo serves as a case in which are carried the materials used in the disgusting practice of betel-nut chewing--which seems to be equivalent to the western tobacco-chewing. If a pipe is wanted the Dyak will in a wonderfully short s.p.a.ce of time make a huge hubble-bubble out of bamboos of different sizes, and if his long-bladed knife requires a sheath the same gigantic gra.s.s supplies one almost ready-made. But the uses to which this reed may be applied are almost endless, and the great outstanding advantage of it is that it needs no other tools than an axe and a knife to work it.

At about mid-day the river was reached, and they found a native boat, or prau, which had been sent down to convey them to the Rajah's village.

Here Nigel was received with the hospitality due to a friend of Van der Kemp, who, somehow--probably by unselfish readiness, as well as ability, to oblige--had contrived to make devoted friends in whatever part of the Malay Archipelago he travelled.

Afterwards, in a conversation with Nigel, the professor, referring to those qualities of the hermit which endeared him to men everywhere, said, with a burst of enthusiasm, which almost outdid himself--

"You cannot oonderstant Van der Kemp. No man can oonderstant him. He is goot, right down to zee marrow--kind, amiable, oonselfish, obliging, nevair seems to zink of himself at all, ant, abof all zings, is capable.

Vat he vill do, he can do--vat he can do he vill do. But he is sad--very sad."

"I have observed that, of course," said Nigel. "Do you know what makes him so sad?"

The professor shook his head.

"No, I do not know. n.o.body knows. I have tried to find out, but he vill not speak."

The Orang-Kaya, or rich man, as this hill chief was styled, had provided lodgings for his visitors in the "head-house." This was a large circular building erected on poles. There is such a house in nearly all Dyak villages. It serves as a trading-place, a strangers' room, a sleeping-room for unmarried youths, and a general council-chamber. Here Nigel found the hermit and Moses enjoying a good meal when he arrived, to which he and the professor sat down after paying their respects to the chief.

"The Orang-Kaya hopes that we will stay with him some time and help to defend the village," said Van der Kemp, when they were all seated.

"Of course you have agreed?" said Nigel.

"Yes; I came for that purpose."

"We's allers ready to fight in a good cause," remarked Moses, just before filling his mouth with rice.

"Or to die in it!" added Verkimier, engulfing the breast of a chicken at a bite. "But as zee pirates are not expected for some days, ve may as veil go after zee mias--zat is what zee natifs call zee orang-utan. It is a better word, being short."

Moses glanced at the professor out of the corners of his black eyes and seemed greatly tickled by his enthusiastic devotion to business.

"I am also," continued the professor, "extremely anxious to go at zee booterflies before--"

"You die," suggested Nigel, venturing on a pleasantry, whereat Moses opened his mouth in a soundless laugh, but, observing the professor's goggles levelled at him, he transformed the laugh into an astounding sneeze, and immediately gazed with pouting innocence and interest at his plate.

"Do you alvays sneeze like zat?" asked Verkimier.

"Not allers," answered the negro simply, "sometimes I gibs way a good deal wuss. Depends on de inside ob my nose an' de state ob de wedder."

What the professor would have replied we cannot say, for just then a Dyak youth rushed in to say that an unusually large and gorgeous b.u.t.terfly had been seen just outside the village!

No application of fire to gunpowder could have produced a more immediate effect. The professor's rice was scattered on the floor, and himself was outside the head-house before his comrades knew exactly what was the matter.

"He's always like that," said the hermit, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. "Nothing discourages--nothing subdues him. Twice I pulled him out of deadly danger into which he had run in his eager pursuit of specimens. And he has returned the favour to me, for he rescued me once when a mias had got me down and would certainly have killed me, for my gun was empty at the moment, and I had dropped my knife."

"Is, then, the orang-utan so powerful and savage?"

"Truly, yes, when wounded and driven to bay," returned the hermit. "You must not judge of the creature by the baby that Verkimier has tamed. A full-grown male is quite as large as a man, though very small in the legs in proportion, so that it does not stand high. It is also very much stronger than the most powerful man. You would be quite helpless in its grip, I a.s.sure you."

"I hope, with the professor," returned Nigel, "that we may have a hunt after them, either before or after the arrival of the pirates. I know he is very anxious to secure a good specimen for some museum in which he is interested--I forget which."

As he spoke, the youth who had brought information about the b.u.t.terfly returned and said a few words to Moses in his native tongue.

"What does he say?" asked Nigel.

"Dat Ma.s.sa Verkimier is in full chase, an' it's my opinion dat when he comes back he'll be wet all ober, and hab his s.h.i.+ns and elbows barked."

"Why d'you think so?"

"'Cause dat's de way he goed on when we was huntin' wid him last year.

He nebber larns fro' 'sperience."

"That's a very fine-looking young fellow," remarked Nigel, referring to the Dyak youth who had just returned, and who, with a number of other natives, was watching the visitors with profound interest while they ate.

As the young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy ma.s.s of straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though the mouth was large and the lips rather thick. Numerous bra.s.s rings encircled his arms above and below the elbows. His only other piece of costume was a waist-cloth of blue cotton, which hung down before and behind. It ended in three bands of red, blue, and white. There were also rows of bra.s.s rings on his legs, and armlets of white sh.e.l.ls. At his side he wore a long slender knife and a little pouch containing the materials for betel-chewing.

"Yes, and he is as good as he looks," said the hermit. "His name is Gurulam, and all the people of his tribe have benefited by the presence in Borneo of that celebrated Englishman Sir James Brooke,--Rajah Brooke as he was called,--who did so much to civilise the Dyaks of Borneo and to ameliorate their condition."