g once before, and nobody could ever tell me what it was.
There's a lot of queer noises to be heard in the forest of a night, and
it always struck me that there are all kinds of wild beasts there such
as have never been heard of before and never seen."

"I dessay," said a voice behind them which made them both start round
and stare at the speaker, who had been leaning over the bulwark
unobserved.

"What's that?" said the captain sharply.

"I said I dessay," replied Briscoe; "but that thing isn't one of them."

"What is it then?" said the captain shortly.

"One of those great long-legged crane things that begin work about this
time, fishing in the swamps for frogs."

"You think the noise was made by a crane?"

"Sure of it, mister," was the reply. "I've sat up before now at the
edge of a swamp to shoot them for specimens, and there's several kinds
of that sort of bird make a row like that."

"Humph!" ejaculated the captain gruffly. "You seem to know. Perhaps,
then, you'll tell us what made that noise?"

He held up his hand, and all listened to a peculiar whirring sound which
began at a distance, came closer and closer till it seemed to pass from
under the trees, swing round the ship, and slowly die away again.

"Ah, that!" said Briscoe quietly. "Sounds like someone letting off a
firework with a bang at the end gone damp. No, I don't know what that
is. Yes, I do," he added hastily. "That's a big bird too."

"Crane?" said the captain, with an incredulous snort.

"No, sir," said the American: "different thing altogether. It's a night
bird that flies round catching beetles and moths--bird something like
our `Whip-poor-Wills' or `Chuck-Will's-widows.'"

"Bah!" said the captain.

"Yes, that's right," cried Brace: "a bird something like our English
night-hawk that sits in the dark parts of the woods and makes a whirring
sound; only it isn't half so loud as this."

"Well," said the captain grudgingly, "perhaps you're right. I'm not
good at birds. I know a gull or a goose or turkey or chicken. I give
in."

The strange whirring sound as of machinery came and went again; but the
maker was invisible, and attention was taken from it directly by a loud
splash just astern.

"Fish!" cried Brace.

"Yes, that's fish," said the captain. "No mistake about that, and you
may as well get your tackle to work, squire, for these rivers swarm with
'em, and some of them are good eating. Bit of fish would be a pleas