The Cockatoos Story | Page 7

legs, and began dragging him away,
while the dogs capered, and danced, and barked round them.
"You may well believe we felt no anxiety to continue our travels, for a
little. There were not many trees near us with fruit that we cared for,
except a cotton-tree; and I ate and ate, wondering why my mother could
have been so stupid as to say its fruit was not safe. But all at once I
began to feel my eyes shutting; and to rouse myself I flew on to another
tree, where my companion soon joined me. Though it was broad
daylight, I was as sleepy as if it had been the dead of night; and I
recollect nothing more, till, on opening my eyes, I found myself in a
dark, dingy place, and heard strange noises--grunts coming from under
my feet, cries from every side; and then such a number of
strange-looking creatures all about, and one quite different in colour
from the others standing near where I was tied; for I soon found I was
securely fastened by the foot."
"That was my uncle," said Herbert; "and he told me how he had found
you and your companion quite stupified with eating the cotton seeds;
and that was a Dyak log-house you were in."
"When I recovered my senses," said the cockatoo, "I had been taken on
board ship, and placed in a large wicker-cage. There were ever so many
more birds in the ship, but I did not see them then, and thought I was
quite alone. However, I had not been many hours in my cage when, to
my horror, a large monkey came and stared at me, putting his ugly
hairy face so close to the cage, that it was all I could do to scream with
fright. At first the men drove him away, but they were soon too busy to
pay any attention to my cries; and somehow I got to be less frightened,
when I saw that he couldn't get near me, though he tried ever so hard.
Round and round he went, tugging at the bars in vain; then he mounted

on the top, and peered at me through the openings, grinning in a very
ugly manner. Now, I had always been considered a bold cockatoo, and
anything but a coward; and so, when I saw his tail sticking between the
bars, I flew down to the bottom of the cage, and seizing it, gave it such
a bite that I nipped the piece quite out! Away he went, howling and
yelling; but though he showed it to ever so many of the men, they said
it served him right for teasing me.
[Illustration: THE COCKATOO'S REVENGE.
Page 50.]
"It was, no doubt, very dull, but I was greatly cheered by the company
of a little girl, the daughter of one of the passengers. She used to come
down every morning, and chatter away to me about all sorts of things,
not one of which I understood, except that she always called me Pretty
Cockatoo, as you do, Master Herbert. She knew, too, what I liked to eat,
and would bring me almonds, and fruit, and sweet cake, and would stay
chattering away to me while I ate them. Soon I began to weary for her
coming, and would sit counting the hours, and forgetting my wrongs,
while waiting for her to come again. I liked the almonds, of course; but
I liked to see her face, and hear her kind voice, far more. And I think I
was less sulky and unhappy during that time than I had been all my life.
It was the parting from her that upset me, and made me fall into a
gloomy and sulky state of mind. I well remember the last day we were
together. She came to me with a piece of cake she had saved for me
from her own lunch; and I seemed somehow to understand what she
was saying. I felt at the time she was asking me to be a good bird; but
now that I have known you, sir, so long, and am better acquainted with
the English language, I know she told me how much happier I should
be if I were good. 'Oh fie, Cockatoo,' I think I hear her saying, 'how
naughty of you to bite the captain's finger; you ought to be a good bird,
sir,--and he is so kind to you, and all the birds aboard.' It was all very
well for Miss Maud to speak of the captain being good; but I could not
forget he had taken me from my home, and made me a prisoner. Ah, sir,
you would not like to have your liberty taken from you; you would feel