“Pious!” I roared.
“Sah?”
After a pause he came into the tent bearing a steaming cup of tea in one hand. This placated me somewhat.
“Good morning, sah.”
“Good morning,” I answered, clutching the cup. “What’s all that row outside? Someone brought beef?”
“No, sah, Elias and Andraia come to take you for bush.”
“Good Lord, at this hour. Why so early?”
“They say,” said Pious, in a disbelieving tone of voice, “they find a hole for ground, very far.” “A hole for ground . . . you mean a cave?”
“Yes, sah.”
This was good news, for I had told the hunters to find some caves for us to investigate, but hitherto they had met with no success. I crawled out of bed and went forth resplendent in my blue and red dressing-gown.
“Good morning, Elias . . . Andraia.”
“Good morning, sah,” as usual in a chorus, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
“What’s all this about a hole?” I asked, sipping my tea with a lordly air. They tore their fascinated eyes away from my dressing-gown with an effort.
“Yesterday I done go for bush, Masa,” said Elias, “I done find hole for ground like Masa de want. Dere be some kind of beef dere for inside, I hear um.”
“You see dis beef?”
“No, sah, I no see um,” said Elias, shuffling his feet. Being by himself, I realized, he would not have ventured into the cave, for the noise may have been produced by a malignant ju-ju of some description.
“All right, what we go do, eh?”
“Masa, we go get four men and we go for bush. We go take catch-net and we catch dis beef. . . .”
“All right, go for village and find some good hunter men. Then you go come back in one hour, you hear?”
“We hear, sah,” and they went off to the village.
“Pious, I want breakfast at once.”
“Yes, sah,” said Pious mournfully. He had been afraid of this. He whisked off to the kitchen and raised hell with the cook to relieve his feelings. “You no hear Masa say he want breakfast now . . . you go sit there like bushman, eh? Gimme plate, gimme cup, quick, quick.”
Within an hour we were deep in the forest, climbing up a great hillside between the twisting roots of the trees. Besides Elias and Andraia there were three other men: a shifty, fox-faced individual known as Carpenter, by virtue of his trade; a boisterous likeable youth called Nick; and a gaunt, taciturn person called Thomas. Daniel the animal boy followed behind carrying the food supply for the party. We were all in high spirits, the hunters conversing loudly, laughing and ejaculating “eh . . . aehh!” at intervals, the ringing “chunk” of their cutlasses biting into the wood as they marked the trail. We climbed steadily for about half a mile, and then the forest floor levelled out, and walking became easier. In certain places we came across a tree, about six inches in circumference, growing straight and branchless as a wand up into the maze of foliage above. The trunk of this tree was covered with numbers of tiny waxy blossoms, a deep and beautiful pink, growing on a minute stem about a quarter of an inch long. The flowers were about the size of one’s little fingernail, and grew so close together that they completely hid great sections of the bark. In the strange, underwater light of the forest these trees glowed against the dark background like great spiky sticks of pink coral. In one place we passed six of these trees growing out of a hillock of big boulders, which were covered with green velvet-like moss, and the flowers of the yellow begonias. One could walk for hours in the forest, and just as one’s eyes were getting tired of the never-ending sameness of the smooth, branchless trunks, and the thin wispy undergrowth, you would suddenly come upon a scene like this, fantastic in colour and grouping, and your interest would be revived by its beauty.
At one point in our journey I discovered alongside the path we were following the immense rotting carcase of a tree, a hundred and fifty feet of it, stretching its great length across the floor of the forest. Although it had fallen some considerable time ago, you could still see how it had splintered and bent the smaller growth around it, and the great weight of the head foliage had ripped its way earthwards, creating a small clearing where it had fallen and leaving a gap in the forest roof so that you could see an area of blue sky above. The roots had been torn from the earth, twisted and black they looked like a giant hand. In the palm of this hand was the dark entrance to the hollow interior of the trunk. I called Elias’s attention to it, and he considered it gravely.
“You think there be beef for inside?”
“Sometime there go be beef for inside,” he admitted cautiously.
“All right, we go look. . . .”
Andraia, the Carpenter, and the mournful Thomas went to the top end of the trunk while Nick, Elias, and myself investigated the hole in the base. On close inspection this entrance hole proved to be some eight feet in diameter, and one could stand up in it with comfort. Elias and Nick crawled a few feet into the hollow interior, and sniffed like terriers. All I could smell was the rotting wood and damp earth.
“Ah,” said Elias, sniffing furiously. “Na catar beef, he, Nick?”
“I tink so,” agreed Nick, also sniffing.
I sniffed again, but could still smell nothing.
“What,” I inquired of Elias, “is a catar beef?”
“Na big beef, sah. ’E get skin for ’e back like snake. He go so. . .” and he hunched himself into a ball to illustrate the habits of the animal.
“Well, how are we going to get it out?” I asked.
Elias emerged from the trunk and carried on a rapid conversation in Banyangi with the Carpenter at the other end of the tree. Then he turned to me: “Masa get flash-lamp?”
“Yes. . . . Daniel, bring dat flashlamp from bag. . . ”
With the torch in his mouth Elias once more got down on all fours and disappeared into the interior of the tree with much grunting and echoing gasps of “Eh . . . aehh!” I did not feel it was an opportune moment to remind him that some species of snake delight in living in such hollow places. I wondered what he would do if he came upon a snake in that tunnel-like trunk, with no room to turn.
Suddenly, about twenty feet down the trunk, we heard great knockings and muffled shouts.
“Na whatee . . . na whatee?” yelled Nick excitedly. A flood of Banyangi echoed along the hollow trunk to us.
“What’s he say?” I begged Nick, my visions of a deadly snake becoming more convincing.
“Elias say he see beef; sah. He say ’e dere for inside. He say make Carpenter put small fire and smoke go make beef run, den Elias he catch um”
“Well, go and tell the Carpenter.”
“Yessir. You get matches, sah?”
I handed over my matches, and Nick bounded off to the other end of the tree. I crawled into the interior and dimly I could see the glow of the torch that indicated Elias’s position, far down the trunk.
“Elias, are you all right?”
“Sah?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yessah. I see um, sah,” he called excitedly.
“What kind of beef?”
“Na catar beef, sah, and ’e get picken for ’e back.”
“Can I come and see?” I pleaded.
“No, sah, no get chance here. Dis place too tight, sah,” he called, and then he started to cough. A great cloud of pungent smoke swept down the trunk, obliterating the torchlight, filling my lungs and making my eyes water. Elias was making the interior vibrate with his coughing. I crawled out hurriedly, with streaming eyes.