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The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 51. That's Saint Helena |
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_ CHAPTER FIFTY ONE. THAT'S SAINT HELENA Night, and no sign of the brig. Morning, and the doctor and his nephew both on deck, with a sail in sight upon the distant horizon, while just beyond it, looming up, was what seemed to be a dark cloud. "There she is!" cried the doctor, glass in hand. "We will soon know the truth now, Rodd." "That, sir?" said a voice close behind them. "That's Saint Helena." The doctor started round as though he had been stung, to stare fiercely in the frank face of Joe Cross, who looked rather thin and hollow-cheeked, but had declared himself well enough to take the morning watch. "It is, sir," said the man, who took the doctor's angry stare for a look of doubt. "That's right enough, though it don't look like an island. It's the big rock where they've got Bony shut up." "Bah!" snapped the doctor, and he turned on his heel and walked away. "Turned out of his bunk wrong side up'ards, sir?" asked the man, with a smile. "Pah!" ejaculated Rodd, and he stamped off in the other direction. "Old 'un's been giving it to him, I suppose," said Joe to himself. "Oh, I know; he'd been upsetting that bottle of fish soup as the skipper fetched me down to swab up last night--that as went all over the skipper's chart. Pore young chap! I'll go and smooth him down." "What do you want?" cried Rodd angrily. "Oh, nothing, sir. I only wanted to say I'm sorry I put your uncle out about the island. I'm a bit deaf in one ear since I got hurt over that fight, and I mis-underconstumbled him. He said, 'There she is,' and I thought he was talking about Bony's island, and he meant the brig." "Well, suppose he did? There she is." "Nay, sir; you take another look. That's a three-master, sir. Don't you see?" "Oh yes, I see now, Joe," said Rodd, who was rather ashamed of his petulance to the man. "She was end on to us, and I didn't see the mizzen. Why, she's in full sail!" "Yes, sir, a regular crowd of canvas, topgallants and stunsles all up, and if I haven't forgotten all about a man-of-war, that's what she is, as we used to say, by the cut of her jib, which is a very sensible remark, sir, as from here her jib's quite out of sight." The doctor kept on deck till breakfast-time, sweeping the horizon with his glass, while the skipper walked up and down with his long mahogany-covered glass tucked under his left arm, and his hands very deep down in his pockets, while his shoulders were hitched up to his ears. Then breakfast, with everything hot except the conduct of the occupants of the cabin. This was almost icy, and hardly a word was spoken. Up on deck again, with the schooner careening over to the pleasant breeze, but no sign of the brig; but the three-masted vessel was overhauling them fast, and before long a gun said, Heave to, in the very emphatic monosyllable so well understood in the Royal Navy. The skipper gave a glance at Uncle Paul with one eye, and that morning it seemed if as he had been suddenly afflicted with a cast, for the other eye turned outward and looked at Rodd. Then he gave the order to the man at the wheel, who with a few turns of the spokes ran the swift little vessel well up into the wind, her sails began to flap, and she quietly settled down into a gentle rock upon the beautifully rippled heaving sea. Then time went on, with the man-of-war bearing down upon them rapidly, while the doctor stood scowling angrily at the rock which had so much to do with the fate of nations standing out more clearly in the sunlit air. In due time a boat full of men was swung down from the davits of the cruiser, the oars dipped, and she came skimming along with a steady pull, and every stroke pulled clean and with hardly a splash, till she came alongside, when, to the delight of Rodd, there in the stern-sheets were the same officer and middy who had overhauled them off the African coast. Rodd was all eagerness, and advanced ready to grasp hands with the reefer, but to his great surprise everything was coldly stern and formal. Two marines followed the officers on board, and the skipper, doctor, and Rodd were ordered down into the boat as prisoners, while a prize crew under the command of the middy, who looked more important than he did upon his first visit to the schooner, and stared at Rodd as if he had never seen him before, was left on board. Uncle Paul spoke to the lieutenant, but his words were received almost in silence, while no explanation being forthcoming, he sat still and frowned. The sloop of war, their old friend, was soon reached, and the prisoners were marched up to the quarter-deck where the captain stood waiting for them, scanning them sternly before beginning to question the skipper as to the name of the schooner and their object in those waters. Questions were answered and explanations given in Captain Chubb's most blunt and straightforward way, before the captain turned his searching eyes upon Uncle Paul. "Then you are Dr Robson, sir?" he said. "Yes. May I ask--" "You are here carrying out a scientific research?" "Yes." "In company with your consort, Count Des Saix, of the French brig _Dagobert_?" "That's quite right, sir; but may I ask--" "Why you are my prisoners? Certainly. But I will shorten matters by telling you that your scientific research was a plot to carry off the prisoner of the British Government, the ex-emperor Napoleon Bonaparte." "No, sir, I'll be hanged if it was!" cried the doctor. "Which plot has completely failed," added the captain. "As I have said, sir, you are my prisoner." "And what about Captain Chubb, here, and my nephew?" "They are prisoners too, of course." "But my schooner--my pleasure yacht?" said the doctor. The captain slightly shrugged his shoulders, as he smiled-- "That will be well taken care of, sir, you may depend." ------------- "Ah, Rodd, my boy," said the doctor, shortly afterwards, "you are getting plenty of adventures; but you needn't be uncomfortable. This will all be cleared up. Well, Chubb, I am afraid you were right; at any rate the King's officer seems to be quite of your opinion." "Yes, sir, but wait a bit," said the captain. "I suppose they'll get us close in, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if we find, when we get to the other side of the island, that they've got the brig snug in shelter there." "What, captured too?" cried Rodd excitedly. "Yes, sir. This sloop of war is kept here to cruise about the island and keep strangers off. That's what she's for." _ |
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