The Cliff Climbers. Reid Mayne

odd appearance

      For the full length of another hour did the trio in the tree have their patience tested. During all that time the “rogue” remained upon the ground, continuing his perambulations around the rock – until he had trodden out a path that resembled the arena of a circus at the close of a night’s performance.

      It is not necessary to say that the time hung heavily upon the hands of the spectators – to say nothing of Fritz, who would no doubt have been satisfied with a much shorter programme.

      As regards the former, the hour might have been spent less pleasantly than it was; for it so chanced that an interlude was introduced, of so interesting a character to all, but more especially to the naturalist Karl, that for a while the proximity of their savage besieger was forgotten, and they scarcely remembered that they were besieged.

      Favoured by the accident of their situation, they became spectators of a scene – one of those scenes only to be viewed amid the wild solitudes of Nature.

      Not far from the tree on which they had found shelter, stood another of equal dimensions, but of an entirely different species. It was a sycamore, as even Caspar, without any botanical skill, could testify. Its smooth bark, piebald with white and green spots, its widely-straggling limbs and leaves, left no doubt about its being one. It was the sycamore, identical with its European congener, the Platanus orientalis.

      It is the habit of this fine tree to become hollow. Not only does the lower part of its trunk exhibit the phenomenon of great cavities, but holes are found high up in its main shaft or in the larger limbs.

      The tree in question stood within a few yards of that on which Karl, Caspar, and Ossaroo were perched. It was just before their eyes, whenever they looked in a horizontal direction; and occasionally, when tired with watching the monotonous movements of the elephant, one or other of them did look horizontally. The scanty foliage upon the sycamore enabled them to see its trunk and most of its larger limbs, without any obstruction of leaves or branches.

      Caspar had not cast his eyes more than twice in the direction of this tree, when he saw there was something peculiar about it. Caspar was a youth of quick sight and equally quick perception. In the main stem of the tree, and about six feet above its first forking, he perceived an object that at once fixed his attention. It looked like a goat’s horn, only that it was more like the curving tusk of a rhinoceros or a very young elephant. It was sticking out from the tree, with the curve directed downwards. Altogether, it looked quite different from a branch of the sycamore, or anything belonging to the tree.

      Once or twice, while Caspar had his eyes upon it, he thought or fancied that it moved; but not being sure of this, he said nothing, lest the others might laugh at him. It would not have been the first time that Karl, from his superior knowledge, had indulged in a laugh at his brother’s expense.

      Caspar’s attention being now engrossed by the peculiar appearance he had noted, he continued to scrutinise it; and soon perceived that around the curved excrescence there was a circular disc some eight or ten inches in diameter, and differing in colour from the bark of the sycamore – by being many shades darker. This disc appeared composed of some substance that was not ligneous: for it no more resembled wood than the curved ivory-like object that protruded from its centre. Had Caspar been asked what it did look like, he would have answered that it resembled the agglutinated mud used by swallows in building their nests – so like it, that it might have been the same substance.

      Caspar continued to scrutinise these two curious objects – the tusk-like excrescence, and the dark disc from which it protruded; and not until he became fully aware that the former had life in it, did he communicate his discovery to his companions. Of this fact he was convinced by seeing the crescent suddenly disappear – as if drawn within the tree, while in its place a dark round hole was alone visible. Presently the yellowish horn reappeared through the hole, and protruded outside, filling it up as before!

      Caspar was too much astonished by this exhibition to remain any longer the sole proprietor of such a mysterious secret, and without more delay he communicated his discovery to Karl, and indirectly to Ossaroo.

      Both at the same time turned their eyes towards the tree, and bent them upon the indicated spot. Karl was as much mystified by the strange appearance as had been Caspar himself.

      Not so Ossaroo. The moment he saw the carving ivory and the dark-coloured disc, he pronounced, in a tone of careless indifference, the simple phrase, —

      “Hornbill—de bird on him nest.”

      Chapter Fourteen.

      A curious nest

      Just then the curved projection was observed to recede within the tree; and in its place appeared a small dark hole, apparently the entrance to a larger cavity. Karl, as Caspar had done the moment before, saw this with surprise.

      “Nest?” repeated Caspar, astonished at the shikaree’s statement. “A bird’s nest? Is that what you mean, Ossy?”

      “That just it, sahib. Nest of great biggee bird. Feringhees him call horneebill.”

      “Well,” rejoined Caspar, not greatly enlightened by Ossaroo’s explanation, “that’s very curious. We have seen something like a horn sticking out of the tree, though it looks more like ivory than horn. It may be the bill of a bird; but as to a bird itself, or the nest of one, where is that, pray?”

      Ossaroo intimated that the nest was inside the tree; and that the bird was on the nest just behind its beak, where it ought to be.

      “What! the bird is in that hole where we saw the white thing sticking out? Why, it quite filled the hole, and if there’s a bird there, and what we saw be its bill, I have only to say that its bill must be as big as its body – else how can it get out and in through so small an aperture? Certainly I see no hole but the one. Oh! perhaps the bird is a toucan. I have heard there are some of that sort that can go through any place where they can pass their beaks. Is it a toucan, Ossaroo?”

      Ossaroo could not tell what a toucan was, never having heard of such a bird. His ornithological knowledge went no further than to the birds of Bengal; and the toucan is found only in America. He stated that the bird in the tree was called by the Feringhees a “hornbill,” but it was also known to some as the “rhinoceros bird.” Ossaroo added that it was as large as a goose; and that its body was many times thicker than its bill, thick as the latter appeared to be.

      “And you say it has its nest inside that hole?” interrogated Caspar, pointing to the little round aperture, which did not appear to be over three inches in diameter.

      “Sure of it, young sahib,” was Ossaroo’s reply.

      “Well, certainly there is some living creature in there, since we have seen it move; and if it be a bird as large as a goose, will you explain to me how it got in, and how it means to get out? There must be a larger entrance on the other side of the tree.”

      “No, sahib,” confidently asserted Ossaroo; “that you see before your eye – that the only way to de horneebill nest.”

      “Hurrah for you, Ossy! So you mean to say that a bird as large as a goose can go in and out by that hole? Why, a sparrow could scarcely squeeze itself through there!”

      “Horneebill he no goee in, he no goee out. He stay inside till him little chickees ready for leavee nest.”

      “Come, Ossy!” said Caspar, in a bantering way; “that story is too good to be true. You don’t expect us to believe all that? What, stay in the nest till the young are ready to leave it! And how then? How will the young ones help their mother out of the scrape? How will they get out themselves: for I suppose they don’t leave the nest till they are pretty well grown? Come! good shikaree; let us have no more circumlocution about the matter, but explain all these apparently inexplicable circumstances.”

      The shikaree, thus appealed to, proceeded to give the explanation demanded.

      The hornbill, he said, when about to bring forth its young, selects a hollow in some tree, just large enough conveniently to hold the nest which it builds, and also its own body. As soon as the nest