heard them approach suddenly, and darting out of the hut, he took
refuge in the shelter of the cane plantation, from amidst whose thick
growth he saw them step to the front of the hut, which in no wise
excited their curiosity; but they stopped short for a few minutes,
_just_ long enough for one of them to climb one of the cocoanut trees
and hack off a couple of the great husks, to fall with heavy thuds,
before the climber slipped to earth again, when both set to work hacking
off the husk and cutting away one end of the half-hardened shell.

They were moments of intense excitement for Murray, as he crouched a few
yards away, almost afraid to breathe, fully expecting that one or other
of the pair might rise from where he had thrown himself down, and
entering the hut discover its occupant. But it seemed as if the rough
little edifice only represented the hut of a slave in the fresh-comers'
eyes, and having satisfied their thirst with the sweet sub-acid cream,
they cast away the shells and sat talking together for a few minutes;
and then the crucial moment seemed to have arrived for the discovery,
for they suddenly sprang up--so sharply that the lad's hand flew to his
cutlass, and then he had hard work to suppress a cry of relief, as the
pair rapidly stalked away.

"It is too risky," muttered the lad. "I must find some safer
hiding-place."

"So beautiful and yet so horrible," he thought, as he crouched in
amongst the abundant growth, the narrow sunlit openings being visited
from time to time by tiny birds whose scale-shaped feathers were
dazzling in their hues as precious stones, while they were so fearless
that he watched them hang suspended in the air or flit with a low hum to
and fro within a few inches of his face. At another time he would be
visited by butterflies that were the very perfection of Nature's
painting, while wherever the sun's rays struck down hottest the jungle
was alive with glistening horny-coated beetles whose elytra looked as if
they had been fashioned out of golden, ruddy and bronze-tinted metal.

Just when the sun was beginning to sink lower and warning him that it
would not be long before he would have the protection of another night,
his attention was caught by a fresh rustling noise not far away, and it
struck him that this might be the sound made by the returning of the
builder of the hut.

So sure did the lad feel of this that he congratulated himself upon the
fact that he was well hidd