The Cliff Climbers

Caspar, still in a cloud, once more interrogated the plant-hunter as to his purpose.

“Ho, brother!” answered Karl, “you are not wont to be so dull of comprehension. Can you not guess why I am so joyed by the presence of these birds?”

“Indeed I cannot – unless – ”

“Unless what?”

“You expect them to carry a rope up the cliff.”

“Carry a rope up the cliff! Nothing of the sort. Yes; perhaps it is something of the sort. But since you have made such a poor guess, I shall keep you in suspense a little longer.”

“O, brother! – ”

“Nay, I shall not tell you. It is news worth guessing at; and you and Ossaroo must make it out between you.”

The two hunters, thus challenged, were about entering upon a series of conjectures, when they were interrupted by Karl.

“Come!” said he, “there is no time now. You can exercise your ingenuity after we have got home to the hut. We must make sure of the storks, before anything else be attended to. This cord is too slight. They may file it in two with their bills, and get free. The very strongest rope we have got will not be more than sufficient. Come, Ossaroo, you take one. Lift it up in your arms. I shall carry the other myself; while you, Caspar, see to Fritz. Lead the dog in a leash. From this time forward he must be kept tied up – lest any misfortune should happen to spoil the best plan that has yet offered for our deliverance.”

So saying, Karl flung his arms around one of the adjutants. Ossaroo at the same instant embraced the other; and, despite the roaring that proceeded from their throats, and the clattering made by their mandibles, the huge birds were borne home to the hut.

On arriving there, they were carried inside, and fastened with strong ropes – carefully attached to their legs, and tied to the heavy beams forming the rafters of the roof. The door was to be kept shut upon them at all times when the eyes of the captors were not watching them: for Karl, knowing the importance of having such guests, was determined to make sure of his “game.”

Chapter Sixty One.

Mail-carriers on wings

It was only after they had gone back for their baskets of beans, and once more returned to the hut, that Caspar and Ossaroo found time to indulge in their conjectures. Then both of them set to work in earnest – seated upon the great stones outside the door, where often before they had conjured up schemes for their deliverance. Neither communicated his thoughts to the other; each silently followed the thread of his own reflections – as if there was a rivalry between them, as to who should be the first to proclaim the design already conceived by Karl.

Karl was standing close by, apparently as reflective as either of his companions. But his thoughts were only occupied in bringing to perfection the plan, which to them was still undiscovered.

The storks had been brought out of the hut, and tied to a heavy log that lay near. This had been done, partly to accustom them to the sight of the place, and partly that they might be once more fed – the single fish they had swallowed between them not being deemed sufficient to satisfy their hunger.

Caspar’s eyes wandered to that one that had the ring upon its leg; and then to the ring itself —R.B.G., Calcutta.

The inscription at length proved suggestive to Caspar, as the ring itself, on first seeing it, had to his brother. On that bit of brass there was information. It had been conveyed all the way from Calcutta by the bird that bore the shining circlet upon its shank. By the same means why might not information be carried back? Why —

“I have it! I have it!” shouted Caspar, without waiting to pursue the thread of conjecture that had occurred to him. “Yes, dear Karl, I know your scheme – I know it; and by Jupiter Olympus, it’s a capital one!”

“So you have guessed it at last,” rejoined Karl, rather sarcastically. “Well, it is high time, I think! The sight of that brass ring, with its engraved letters, should have led you to it long ago. But come! let us hear what you have got to say, and judge whether you have guessed correctly.”

“Oh, certainly!” assented Caspar, taking up the tone of jocular badinage in which his brother had been addressing him. “You intend making a change in the character – or rather the calling – of these lately arrived guests of ours.” Caspar pointed to the storks. “That is your intention, is it not?”

“Well?”

“They are now soldiers —officers, as their title imports – adjutants!”

“Well?”

“They will have no reason to thank you for your kind intentions. The appointment you are about to bestow on them can scarce be called a promotion. I don’t know how it may be with birds, but I do know that there are not many men ambitious of exchanging from the military to the civil service.”

“What appointment, Caspar?”

“If I’m not mistaken, you mean to make mail-carriers of them —postmen, if you prefer the phrase.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Karl, in a tone expressive of gratification at the clever manner in which Caspar had declared himself. “Right, brother! you’ve guessed my scheme to the very letter. That is exactly what I intend doing.”

“By de wheeles ob Juggannaut coachee,” cried the shikaree, who had been listening, and understood the figurative dialogue; “dat be da goodee plan. Dese stork go back Calcutt – surely dey go back. Dey carry letter to Feringhee Sahibs – Sahibs dey know we here in prison – dey come d’liva we vey dey affer get de letter – ha! ha! ha!” Then delivering himself of a series of shrill ejaculations, the Hindoo sprang up from the stone upon which he had been sitting, and danced around the hut, as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses!

However imperfectly spoken, the words of Ossaroo had disclosed the whole plan, as conceived by the plant-hunter himself.

It had vaguely defined itself in Karl’s mind, on first seeing the storks above him in the air; but when the lustre of metal flashed before his eyes, and he perceived that yellow band encircling the shank of the bird, the scheme became more definite and plausible.

When at length the storks were taken captive, and Karl deciphered the inscription – by which they were identified as old acquaintances of the R.B.G. – he no longer doubted that Providence was in the plot; and that these winged messengers had been sent, as it were, from Heaven itself, to deliver him and his companions from that prison in which they had so long been pining.

Chapter Sixty Two.

Conclusion

The deliverance came at length; though it was not immediate. Several months more, of that lonely and monotonous life, were our adventurers called upon to endure.

They had to wait for the return of the rainy season; when the rivers that traverse the great plains of Hindostan became brimful of flood – bearing upon their turbid bosoms that luxuriance, not of life, but of death, which attracts the crane and the stork once more to seek subsistence upon their banks. Then the great adjutant returns from his summer tour to the north – winging his way southward over the lofty summits of Imaus. Then, too, did Karl and his comrades believe that their adjutants would be guided by a like instinct, and go back to the R.B.G. – the Royal Botanic Garden of Calcutta.

Karl felt confident of their doing so, as certain almost as if he had stood on the banks of the sacred stream in the R.B.G. itself, and saw them descending from their aerial flight and alighting within the enclosure. This confidence arose from the remembrance of his having heard – while sojourning with the Curator – that such had been their habit for many years; and that the time, both of their departure and arrival, was so periodically regular, that there was not an employé of the place who could not tell it to a day!

Fortunately, Karl remembered the time, though not the exact day. He knew the week, however, in which his guests might be expected to take their departure; and this was enough for his purpose.

During their stay in the valley the birds had been cared for, as if they had been sacred to some deity, adored by those who held them in charge.

Fish and flesh had they a plenty – with Ossaroo as their provider. Food and drink, whenever they stood in need of either; freedom from annoyance, and protection from enemies of every kind – even from Fritz, who had long since ceased to be their enemy. Nothing had been wanting to their comfort; everything had been granted – everything but their liberty.

This, too, was at length restored to them.

On a fair morning – such as a bird might have chosen for its highest flight – both were set free to go whithersoever they listed.

The only obstruction to their flight was a pair of small skin sacks, one attached to the neck of each, and prudently placed beyond the reach of its mandibles. Both were furnished with this curiously-contrived bag; for Karl – as the spare leaves of his memorandum-book enabled him to do – had determined that each should be entrusted with a letter and lest one should go astray, he had sent his despatch in duplicate.

For a time the birds seemed reluctant to leave those kind companions – who had so long fed and cherished them; but the instinct that urged them to seek the sunny plains of the South at length prevailed; and, giving a scream of adieu – reciprocated by the encouraging shouts of those they were leaving behind, and a prolonged baying from the throat of the boar-hound Fritz – they soared aloft into the air; and in slow, solemn flight ascended the cliff – soon to disappear behind the crest of the encircling ridge.

Ten days after, on that same cliff stood a score of men – a glad sight to Karl, Caspar, and Ossaroo. Even Fritz barked with joy as he beheld them!

Against the blue background of the sky, it could be perceived that these men carried coils of rope, pieces of wood, and other implements that might be required for scaling a cliff.

Our adventurers now knew, that, one or other, or both copies of their duplicate despatch, must have reached the destination for which they had designed it.

And the same destination was soon after reached by themselves. By the help of their rescuers, and the long rope-ladders which they let down, all three succeeded in climbing the cliff– Fritz making the ascent upon the shoulders of the shikaree!

All three, amidst a company of delighted deliverers – with Fritz following at their heels – once more descended the southern slope of the Himalayas; once more stood upon the banks of the sacred Ganges; once more entered within the hospitable gates of the R.B.G. – there to renew their acquaintance, not only with hospitable friends, but with those winged messengers, by whose instrumentality they had been delivered from their living tomb, and once more restored to society and the world!