Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise > This page
The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 39. Spanish Liquorice |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. SPANISH LIQUORICE There was quite a discussion when the doctor joined those waiting by the brig, the Count being bitterly annoyed and displaying more excitement than the others had seen in him before, while Morny kept close to his side, and whispered to him from time to time, as if trying to calm him down. "Yes, yes, my son," he cried passionately, and speaking to him in French; "but you are a boy, and do not think. Look here," and he pointed to the helpless brig, "how do we know but that he may be an enemy? And we are in this helpless state, quite at his mercy." The doctor was listening attentively, and understood every word. "I know," he said soothingly, "this must be very painful for you; but Captain Chubb believes that before many days are over the brig will be as strong as ever. I answer for him that he is making every effort to finish what he has undertaken." Uncle Paul directed a glance at the skipper, who stood scowling close by. "Thank you, doctor," he granted, as he gave a nod. "And I feel sure that this Spanish captain, who is evidently an ordinary trader, will prove perfectly inoffensive; and besides, my dear sir, we are not at war now, and what enemies can you have to fear?" "Ah, yes," said the Count bitterly, as he made a deprecating gesture with his hands, turning and directing his words at his son; "what enemies can we have to fear?" "Well, I am glad you look upon it in that light," said the doctor. "Now, if it had been years ago, with your smart little craft, and you had been followed up here by a small sloop of war, or an English letter of marque, you might have expected to be made a prize. But this is an ordinary Spanish schooner, and though I suspected it at first, I don't think she is tainted by the slave trade, but engaged in traffic with the natives for the sake of palm-oil." "Perhaps you are right, sir," said the Count. "I feel sure I am," said the doctor, "and I must confess to having hailed this man's coming, from the help he will be to me in a little expedition I propose to make when we have seen the brig restored and all set right." "I thank you," said the Count, "but I am so anxious for the success of my own scientific search that I have got into the habit of seeing enemies in every one, even as I did, doctor, in you and your men. And you see this is an armed vessel with a very strong crew." "Well," said the doctor good-humouredly, "we have armed vessels with very strong crews. Anxiety has made you nervous, Count. Here's your doctor," he said, turning to Captain Chubb, "and before many days have passed he will have cured all your trouble, and we can get to sea again." "Ah, yes, that will be better," said the Count, wiping his moist brow. "You must forgive me, doctor--and you too, Captain Chubb. I am impatient, I know. But I see now all will be well. One moment, though: you said we can get to sea again. _We_? You will sail with me?" "My dear sir," said the doctor, "you need have no fear. Captain Chubb will make your brig as sound as ever. You will need to look for no further assistance from me." "I did not mean that," said the Count hastily. "I meant brotherly help--the help that one devoted to research could give to another." "But," said the doctor, laughing, "you have never confided to me what particular form of research yours is." "No, I have not," said the Count hurriedly, "and I ask you to spare me from explanation. Be satisfied if I say that we are both bound upon great missions, and that you, a brother scientist, can give me enormous help by working in company with me for the next few weeks at most. Is this too much to ask of a learned doctor like you?" "Oh no," said Uncle Paul good-humouredly; "I do not see that it is. You are not going to ask me to help you to escape from an English prison." The Count gave an involuntary start. "Of course not," said the doctor, "for I am thankful that all that kind of trouble is at an end, and that France and England are at peace; and besides, you are free to come and go where you please. Well, as your son and my nephew have become such inseparable friends, and my time is my own, I will ask no questions, but sail where you sail, and pick up what I can to complete my specimens while you continue your research; and believe me, I wish you every success." "Ah," said the Count, with a sigh of satisfaction; and with all a Frenchman's effusiveness he laid his hands on the doctor's shoulders and said, with some little show of emotion, "I thank you. You are making me as great a friend as my son is to your nephew." Watch was mounted on both vessels at night as if they were in the presence of a dangerous enemy; but there in the great solitude of that forest through which the river ran, there was nothing human to disturb the night. Savage nature was as busy as ever during the dark hours through which the creatures of land and water fled for their lives or pursued their prey. Otherwise everything was wondrously still, and those upon schooner or brig who might have felt doubtful about the Spanish craft saw or heard nothing save the low murmur of voices in conversation and the occasional opening or shutting of a dull lantern, whose use was explained by the sudden glow cast upon the face of some swarthy sailor as he lit a fresh cigarette, after which a couple of faint points of glowing light rising and falling might have been seen passing to and fro upon the Spaniard's deck. Then as daylight came again there was the busy sound of the saw, chipping of the adze, the creak of auger, and the loud echoing rap of the mallet, as some tree-nail was driven home. On the previous evening the conversation that had gone on between the doctor and the Count had hardly ended before the Spaniard's boat, rowed by a couple of men, came as near as they could get to the brig, and one of the bare-legged men, after giving a sharp look round into the shallow water, as if in search of danger from one of the hideous reptiles on the look-out for prey, stepped over into the mud, and came up, bearing a basket of large, freshly-caught fish, which he placed in the hands of a couple of the sailors, and then stood waiting. "Ah!" cried the doctor. "The fish the Spanish captain promised me. Our thanks to your master, and I will not forget what he wanted." The man answered him in Spanish. "Ah, now you are taking me out of my depth," said the doctor. "Do you speak French?" The man shook his head. "English, then?" "_No comprende, senor_," replied the man hurriedly--or what sounded like it. "Never mind, then," said the doctor. "I'll send your skipper some powder to-morrow." The man shook his head and made signs, repeating them persistently, frowning and shaking his head. "I think he means, uncle," cried Rodd, "that he won't go away until you have paid him in powder for the fish." "Hang the fellow!" cried the doctor petulantly. "Why hasn't he been taught English? I don't carry canisters of gunpowder about in my pockets. Can any one make him understand that the powder is in the little magazine on the schooner?" "What does he want? Some gunpowder?" said the Count. "Yes. I promised him a present of a few pound canisters." "We can get at ours," said the Count quietly, and giving an order to the French sailor who acted as his mate, the latter mounted into the brig, disappeared down the cabin hatchway, and returned in a few minutes with half-a-dozen canisters, with which the man smilingly departed, after distributing a few elaborate Spanish bows. The weather was glorious, and all that next day good steady progress was made with the brig repairs, while Rodd and his uncle spent most of the time keeping guard over the workmen and sending crocodile after crocodile floating with the tide, to the great delight of the grinning crew of the Spaniard, who lined the new-comer's bulwarks as if they were spectators of some exhibition, and clapped their hands and shouted loud _vivas_ at every successful shot, while all the time tiny little curls of smoke rose at intervals into the sunny air as the men kept on making fresh cigarettes as each stump was thrown with a _ciss_ into the gliding stream. "Quiet and lazy enough set, Pickle," said the doctor. "How they can bask and sleep in the sunshine! It's an easy-going life, that of theirs. Ah, there's the skipper! Fierce-looking fellow. He looks like a man who could use a knife. But you don't half read your Shakespeare, my boy." "What's Shakespeare got to do with that fierce-looking Spaniard using his knife, uncle?" "Only this, my boy," said the doctor, drawing the ramrod out of his double gun and trying whether the wads were well down upon the bullets, for a couple of the ugly prominences that arched over a big crocodile's eyes came slowly gliding down the stream; "I mean that a Shakespeare-reading boy clever at giving nicknames--and that you can do when you like--would have called that fellow Bottom the Weaver." "I don't see why, uncle. Bottom the Weaver?" said the boy musingly, as he slowly raised his gun. "No, no; stop there, Rodd! That's my shot. I saw the brute first." "All right, uncle; only don't miss;" and the boy lowered his gun. "But who was Bottom the Weaver?" "Tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated the doctor. "I say, this is a big one, Rodd--a monster." "Here, I recollect, uncle. He was the man who was going to play lion." "Good boy, Pickle; not so ignorant as I thought you were. Well, didn't he say he'd roar him as gently as any sucking dove, so as not to frighten the ladies?" "Yes, uncle." "Well, didn't our knife-armed Spaniard roar to us as gently as--" _Bang_. "Got him!" cried the doctor. "No, no; a miss," cried Rodd. _Bang_, again. "That wasn't," said the doctor, and as the smoke drifted away there was a burst of _vivas_ again from the Spaniards as they saw their dangerous enemy writhing upon the surface with the contortions of an eel, as it turned and twined, and then lashed the water up into foam, till in a spasmodic effort it dived out of sight and was seen no more. "Poor fellow!" said Joe Cross from the brig, in the most sympathetic of tones. "Such a fine handsome one too, Mr Rodd, sir! Talk about a smile, when he put his head out of the water, why, a tiger couldn't touch it! It must have been three times as long." So the work went on, and the tyrants of the river perished slowly, but did not seem to shrink in numbers. But the carpentering party were able to do their work in safety, and when, after the interval for dinner had ended, Uncle Paul and his nephew carried on what Rodd called a reptilian execution, the Spaniard's crew were lying about in the sunshine asleep upon their deck. They were too idle to take any interest in the shooting, while their captain, a rather marked object in the sunshine from the bright scarlet scarf about his waist, worn to keep up his snowy white duck trousers, lay upon the top of the big three-masted schooner's deck-house with his face turned to the glowing sun, and with a cigarette always in his mouth. "I believe he goes on smoking when he's asleep, uncle," said Rodd. "Yes, Pickle, and if I were an artist and wanted to paint a representation of idleness, there's just the model I should select. They are a lazy lot." "Yes, uncle, and twice over to-day I saw them talking together, and I feel sure that they were laughing at our men because they worked." No communication whatever took place between the strangers and the first occupants of the anchorage till after dark, when, as Rodd was leaning over the taffrail talking to Joe Cross, who said he was cooling himself down after a hot day's work, the Spaniard's boat was dimly seen putting off from the big schooner, and was rowed across, to come close alongside as Joe hailed her. The Spanish skipper looked up, cigarette in mouth, and nodded to Rodd. "You tell your ship-master," he said, "that I have been thinking about the birds and the spotted leopards and the big monkeys. I know a place where they swarm. Good-night!" And at a word his boat was thrust off again and rowed back towards the gangway from which they came. "Well, let 'em swarm," said Joe Cross, as if talking to himself. "I don't mind. This 'ere's a savage country, and 'tis their nature to. He seems a rum sort of a buffer, Mr Rodd, sir. What does he mean by that? Was it Spanish chaff?" "Oh no, Joe. My uncle was asking him about what curiosities there are in the country. That's why he said he had been thinking about them." "Oh, I see. But how rum things is, and how easy a man can make mistakes! Now, if I had been asked my opinion I should have said that that there was a chap as couldn't think even in Spanish; sort of a fellow as could eat, sleep and smoke, and then begin again, day after day and year after year. This is a rum sort of a world, Mr Rodd, sir, and there's all sorts of people in it. Now look at that there skipper. He fancies hisself, he does, pretty creature! White trousers, clean shirt every morning, and a red scarf round his waist. 'Andsome he calls hisself, I suppose. He don't know that even a respectable dog as went to drink in a river and saw hisself, like that there other dog in the fable, would go and drown hisself on the spot if he found he'd a great set of brown teeth like his!" "Ah, Joe, Spaniards are not like Englishmen." "Oh, but I don't call him a Spaniard, sir. I've seen Spaniards--regular grand Dons, officers and gentlemen, with nothing the matter with them at all, only what they couldn't help, and that's being Spaniards instead of Englishmen. These are sort of mongrels. Some of this 'ere crew are what people call mollottoes. They are supposed to be painted white men, but payed over with a dirty tar-brush. Talk about a easy-going lot! Why, I aren't seen one of them do a stroke of work to-day. They are in the ile trade, aren't they, sir? Palm-oil." "Yes, Joe; I suppose so." "Ah, that accounts for it, sir. Handling so much ile that it makes them go so easy." The sailor burst into a long soft laugh, "What are you laughing at, Joe?" "That warn't laughing, sir; that was smiling. When I laugh hearty you can hear me a long way off." "Well, what were you smiling at?" "I was thinking, sir, about how it would be if our old man had that lot under him. My word, how he'd wake them up! Poor, simple, sleepy beggars! It would set them thinking that they hadn't took a skipper aboard, but a human hurricane. I wonder who owns that there craft, and whether he gets anything out of the oil trade. _Viva_, indeed! Yes, our old man would give them something to _viva_ about. Their skipper too--nice way of coming up a river to get a cargo. Well, I suppose they get their tobacco pretty cheap; and that's how the world turns round." Another day glided by, with steady visible progress in the brig's repairs; and the Count seemed in better spirits, and said a few complimentary words to the skipper. On board the schooner Captain Chubb appeared to be setting an example to the Spaniards, for those of his crew who were not helping the carpenters at the brig were kept busy holystoning, polishing, and coiling down ropes into accurate concentric rings, till the Maid of Salcombe was as smart as any yacht. Meanwhile the Spaniards lined the bulwarks of their vessel, smoked and yawned, and watched the reptile shooting, and then stared in sleepy wonderment at the busy smartening up of the English schooner. The evening came, and this time the Spanish captain had himself rowed across again, to find that it was the doctor who was leaning over the side with his nephew, and, cigarette in mouth still, the man said slowly-- "He tell you about the birds and the monkeys up the little river?" "Yes," said the doctor, "and I've been thinking about it." "Ah, yes," said the Spaniard. "I am going to stop a fortnight yet before it's time to go up with my cargo. I'll make my men row you up to the mouth of that little river; and I could show you something you'd like, but you would have to take your guns--you and him too. But maybe the boy would be afraid." "That I shouldn't!" cried Rodd hotly. "Oh! Then you could come," said the Spaniard. "But you'd be in the way if you were afraid. Think about it. Good-night." The doctor was ready to enter into conversation, and question him; but the boat went off back at once, leaving Uncle Paul mentally troubled, for the idea of an excursion into the depths of the forest wilds was exciting in the extreme. "He needn't have been in such a hurry, Pickle," said the doctor. "I should have liked to have questioned him a little." "Yes, uncle. I should like to hear about such things; but it was like his impudence to say that I should be afraid!" "Yes, my boy; it was rude," replied the doctor thoughtfully, "Ah! It's such a chance as might never occur again. A guide like that isn't always to be picked up." "No, uncle," replied the boy; "and it must be very wonderful in the depths of the forest, where you can get through, because you would be able to row." "Yes, my boy; wonderfully interesting," said the doctor eagerly. "But we couldn't go, uncle." "Why, Pickle? Why?" "Because we couldn't go away and leave the brig like that." "No; of course not, my boy. It would be too bad, wouldn't it? And of course we couldn't go and trust ourselves to a pack of strangers, eh?" "We shouldn't be afraid, should we, uncle?" "Well, no, my boy; no. But I don't think it would be prudent. But there, there, we mustn't think of it. We can't do everything we like." _ |
||