until the doctor has got over it, or he'll give you such a dose."

"I'll take care, sir," said the young man; and they went on chatting
about other things.

CHAPTER FIFTY SIX.

DOCTOR BOLTER'S BIRD.

Meanwhile the doctor followed his Malay boy--as he was called, though he
was really a man--through a narrow path right away from the camp and
into the jungle.

The doctor was ruffled exceedingly at his slip of grammar, and looked
very much annoyed; but the thought of being able to secure a specimen of
the much-prized Argus pheasant chased away the other trouble, and he
walked on closely behind his guide.

"How far have we to go, my lad?" he said.

"Walk two hours," said the Malay, "then sit down and listen. No speak a
word till _Coo-ow_ come. Then make gun speak and kill him!"

"To be sure!" said the doctor, nodding his head; and then almost in
silence he followed his guide, often feeling disposed to try and shoot
one or other of the nocturnal birds that flitted silently by, or one of
the great fruit bats that, longer in their spread of wings than rooks,
flew in flocks on their way to devastate some orchard far away.

Quite two hours had elapsed, during which the Malay, apparently quite at
home, led his scientific companion right away through the gloom of the
wilderness.

At last he enjoined silence, saying that they were now approaching the
haunts of the wondrous bird; and consequently the doctor crept on behind
him without so much as crushing a twig.

They had reached an opening in the forest, by the side of what was
evidently a mountain of considerable height, and the doctor smiled as he
recalled the fact that the Argus pheasant was reputed to haunt such
places; when to his intense delight there soddenly rang out from the
distance on the silent night air a peculiar cry that resembled the name
given to the bird--_Coo-ow_. For the moment it seemed to the doctor as
if some Australian savage was uttering his well-known _Coo-ay_, or as if
this was the Malays' form of the cry. But he knew well enough what it
was, and following his guide with the greatest caution, they crept on
towards the place from which the sound had seemed to come.

It was weird work in that wild solitude far on towards midnight, but the
doctor was too keen a naturalist to think of anything but the specimen
of which he was in search. He knew that the native hunters, out night
after night, could not shoot more than one of these birds