Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/194

154 Resuming our march, we next arrived at the Monkey Grove, which was the scene of the tragi-comic adventure by which Fritz became the guardian of the orphan ape.

While he amused us all by a lively and graphic description of the scene, Ernest was standing apart under a splendid coco-nut palm, gazing in fixed admiration at the grand height of the stem and its beautiful graceful crown of leaves. The cluster of nuts beneath these evidently added interest to the spectacle, for drawing quietly near him, I heard a long-drawn sigh, and the words— “It's awfully high! I wish one would fall down!”

Scarcely had he uttered these words, than, as if by magic, down plumped a huge nut at his feet.

The boy was quite startled, and sprang aside, looking timidly upwards, when, to my surprise, down came another.

“Why, this is just like the fairy tale of the wishing-cap!” cried Ernest. “My wish is granted as soon as formed!”

“I suspect the fairy in this instance is more anxious to pelt us and drive us away, than to bestow dainty gifts upon us,” said I. “I think there is most likely a cross-grained old ape sitting up among those shadowy leaves and branches.”

We examined the nuts, thinking they were perhaps old ones, and had fallen in consequence, naturally, but they were not even quite ripe.

Anxious to discover what was in the tree, we all surrounded it, gaping and gazing upwards with curious eyes.

“Hollo! I see him!” shouted Fritz, presently. “Oh, a hideous creature! what can it be? flat, round, as big as a plate, and with a pair of horrid claws! Here he comes! He is going to creep down the tree!”

At this, little Franz slipped behind his mother, Ernest took a glance round to mark a place of retreat, Jack raised the butt-end of his gun, and every eye was fixed on the trunk of the tree, down