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Cutlass and Cudgel, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 15 |
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_ Chapter Fifteen.
The men said he had been putting them through their facings that morning, and he had been finding more fault in two hours than in the previous week, for he was getting fidgety. He had not enjoyed his breakfast, and it was getting on toward the time for his mid-day meal. Suddenly he stopped short by the master, who had also been using a glass, and was evidently waiting to be spoken to. "Seemed in good spirits last night, Mr Gurr, eh?" "Mr Raystoke, sir? Oh yes." "I mean liked his job?" "Yes, sir; determined on it." "Humph! Time we had some news of him, eh?" "Yes, sir; but he may turn up on the cliff at any moment." "Yes. Men quite ready?" "Yes, sir." "That's right. Of course, well-armed?" "Yes, sir; you did tell me. Soon as the signal comes, we shall push off. Awkward bit o' country, sir; six miles' row before you can find a place to land." "Very awkward, but they have to find a place to land their spirits, Mr Gurr, and if we don't soon have something to show we shall be called to account." "Very unlucky, sir. Seems to me like going eel-fishing with your bare hand." "Worse. You might catch one by accident." "So shall we yet, sir. These fellows are very cunning, but we shall be too many for them one of these days." "Dear me! Dear me!" said the little lieutenant after a few more turns up and down. "I don't like this at all I don't think I ought to have let a boy like that go alone. You don't think, Mr Gurr, that they would dare to injure him if he was so unlucky as to be caught?" "Well, sir," said the master, hesitating, "smugglers are smugglers." "Mr Gurr," said the little lieutenant, raising himself up on his toes, so as to be as high as possible, "will you have the goodness to talk sense?" "Certainly, sir." "Smugglers are smugglers, indeed. What did you suppose I thought they were? Oysters?" "Beg pardon, sir; didn't mean any harm." "Getting very late!" said the little officer after another sweep of the top of the cliff, especially above where the French lugger landed the goods. "I shall be obliged to send you on shore, Mr Gurr. You must go and find him. I'm getting very anxious about Mr Raystoke." "Start at once, sir?" "No, wait another half-hour. Very ill-advised thing to do. I cannot think what you were doing, Mr Gurr, to advise me to do such a thing." "Me, sir?" said the master, looking astonished. "Yes. A great pity. I ought not to have listened to you; but in my anxiety to leave no stone unturned to capture some of these scoundrels, I was ready to do anything." "Very true, sir." "Now, my good fellow, what do you mean by that?" "It was only an observation, sir." "Then I must request that you will not make it again. 'Very true?' Of course, what I say is very true. Do you think I should say a thing that was false?" "Beg pardon, sir. 'Fraid I picked up some awk'ard expressions aboard the old frigate." "Awk-ward, Mr Gurr, awkward." "Yes, sir; of course." "You do not understand the drift of my remarks." "'Fraid not, sir," said the master, smiling; "understand drift of the tide much better." "Mr Gurr!" "Yes, sir." "I was trying to teach you to pronounce the king's English correctly, and you turn it off with a ribald remark." "Beg pardon, sir. 'Nother o' my frigate bad habits." "It is a great privilege, Mr Gurr, to be one of those who speak the English tongue, so do not abuse it. Say awk-ward in future, not awk'ard." "Certainly, sir, I'll try," said the master; and then to himself, "Starboard, larboard, for'ard, back'ard, awk'ard. Why, what does he mean?" By this time the little lieutenant was scanning the cliffs again, and the master took off his hat and wiped his forehead. "Talk about thistles and stinging nettles," he muttered, "why there's no bearing him to-day, and all on account of a scamp of a middy such as there's a hundred times too many on in the R'yal Navy. Dunno though; bit cocky and nose in air when he's in full uniform, and don't know which is head and which is his heels, but he aren't such a very bad sort o' boy. Well, what's the matter with you?" Dirty Dick screwed up his mouth as if to speak, but only stared. "Don't turn yourself into a figurehead of an old wreck sir. What do you want?" "Leave to go ashore, sir." "Well, you're going soon as the skipper orders." "I mean all alone by myself, sir." "What for? There aren't a public-house for ten miles." "Didn't mean that." "Then what did you mean? Speak out, and don't do the double shuffle all over my clean deck." "No, sir." "Hopping about like a cat on hot bricks. Now, then, why do you want to go ashore?" "Try and find Mr Raystoke, sir. Beginning to feel scarred about him." "What's that?" said the lieutenant, who had come back from abaft unheard. "Scared about whom?" "Beg pardon, didn't mean nowt, sir," said the sailor touching his forelock. "Yes, you did, sir. Now look here," cried the lieutenant, shaking his glass at the man, "don't you try to deceive me. You meant that you were getting uneasy about Mr Raystoke's prolonged absence." "Yes sir, that's it," said Dick eagerly. "Then how dare you have the effrontery to tell me that you did not mean 'nowt' as you have the confounded north country insolence to call it? For two pins, sir,--women's pins, sir, not belaying pins,--I'd have you put ashore, with orders not to show your dirty face again till you had found Mr Raystoke." Dirty Dick passed his hand over his face carefully, and then looked at the palm to see if any of the swarthy tan had come off. "Do you hear me, sir?" cried the lieutenant. "Yes, sir," said the man humbly. "Shall I go at once sir?" "No. Wait. Keep a sharp look-out on the cliff to see if Mr Raystoke is making signals for a boat. I daresay he has been there all the time, only you took up my attention with your chatter." He swung round, walked aft and began sweeping the shore again with his glass, while the master and Dick exchanged glances which meant a great deal. "He is in a wax," said Dick to himself, as he walked to the side, and stood shading his eyes with his hands, looking carefully for the signals which did not come. Two hours more passed away, during which it was a dead calm, and the sun beat down so hotly that the seams began to send out little black beads of pitch, and drops formed under some of the ropes ready to come off on the first hand which touched them. At last the little lieutenant could bear the anxiety no longer. "Pipe away the men to that boat there," he said; and as the crew sprang in. "Now, Mr Gurr," he said, "I'm only going to say one thing to you in the way of instructions." "Yes, sir." "Will you have the goodness to wait till I have done speaking, Mr Gurr, and not compel me to say all I wish over again?" "Beg pardon, sir," said the master deprecatingly. "I say, sir, I have only one order to give you. Get ashore as soon as you can, and find and bring back Mr Raystoke." "Yes, sir," cried the master, and he walked over the side, glad to get into the boat and push off, muttering the while, "and I always thought him such a quiet, amiable little chap. He's a Tartar; that's what he is. Making all this fuss about a boy who, as like as not, is having a game with us. Don't see me getting out o' temper with everybody, and spitting and swearing like a mad Tom-cat. Hang the boy! He's on'y a middy.--Now, my lads,--now, my lads, put your backs into it, will you?" The boat was already surging through the water faster than it had ever gone before, but the men bent lower and the longer, and the blades of the oars made the water flash and foam as they dipped and rose with the greatest of regularity. For the lieutenant's anxiety about the young officer of the _White Hawk_ was growing more and more contagious, and the men gave a cheer as they span the boat along, every smart sailor on board thinking about the frank, straightforward lad who had so bravely gone on the risky expedition. "Look ye here, Jemmy," said one of the men to his nearest mate, "talk about 'tacking the enemy, if wrong's happened to our young gentleman, all I can say is, as I hopes it's orders to land every night to burn willages and sack everything we can." "And so says all of us," came in a chorus from the rest of the crew. "Steady! My lads, steady!" cried the master--"keep stroke;" and then he began to make plans as to his first proceedings on getting ashore. He wasn't long in making these plans, and when the cove was reached, the two fishing luggers and another boat or two lying there were carefully overhauled, Gurr gazing at the men on board like a fierce dog, and literally worrying the different fishermen as cleverly as a cross-examining counsel would a witness ashore. _ |
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