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Updated: June 17, 2025
Being almost as tall as Saloo himself, he easily got his arm into the cavity that contained the nest, and commenced groping all over it. He could find no other bird, nor yet an egg. Only the dried-up ordure of the denizens that had lately occupied the prison cell, along with some bits of the shell out of which the young hornbill had been but recently hatched.
Again the three men started off, Murtagh traversing in solitude the edge of the lake, while Captain Redwood, with his rifle accompanied by Saloo, carrying his sumpitan and quiver of poisoned arrows struck direct into the woods.
Saloo at once recognised the permanent nest or roosting-place of a mias rombi such as he had often seen in the forests of Sumatra, where the same, or a closely allied species, has its home.
But they saw nothing of those, tallest of all, and the most dreaded by Saloo the mias rombis although the old bee-hunter still maintained his belief that they exist in the forests of Borneo as well as in the wilds of Sumatra.
The hornbills, however, like the eagles, and many other rapacious birds, though not otherwise of a very amiable disposition, are true to the sacred ties of matrimony. So said Saloo, though not in this exact phraseology. "But what if the ould cock shud get killed?" suggested Murtagh. "Supposin' any accident was to prevint him from returnin' to the nest? Wud the hen have to stay there an' starve?"
And this, one, or other, or all of them, would have done, had they not been prevented by Saloo. With a loud shout the Malay, hitherto apparently impassive, called upon them to hold back. They obeyed, seeing that he intended to act, and had already taken his measures for rescuing the girl. They could not tell what these were, and only guessed at them by what they saw in his hands.
As Saloo first caught sight of it, it was descending from the tree, no doubt having been disturbed by the noise made in mooring the boat, and tempted to forsake its perch for some purpose unknown. It was coming down head foremost not along any of the stems, but in an open space between them its tail coiled round a branch above, affording it a support for this descent, monkey or 'possum-fashion.
The mias makes a temporary roost for his repose anywhere it may be wandering constructing it in a few moments, by breaking off the branches and laying them crosswise on a forked limb; but Saloo was aware that, for its permanent residence, it builds a much more elaborate nest, and this, too, always over water or marshy ground, where its human enemy cannot conveniently follow it.
Saloo did not care anything about this, but at once commenced peeling off its skin; and then he cut the body into quarters, and subdivided them into "collops," which were soon sputtering in the blaze of a bright fire. As the Malay had promised, these proved tender, tasting like young pork steaks, with a slight flavour of chicken, and just a soupcon of frog.
She was still living, and apparently unhurt; for they could see her moving, and hear her voice, as she was carried onward and upward in that horrible embrace. Captain Redwood dared not send a bullet nor Saloo an arrow. Slight as the chances were of saving the girl, either would have made them slighter.
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