Chapter Eleven.Ship’s Cat on Board the “Venom.”As soon as I got on deck I began to glance eagerly about me.The moon was shining very brightly, and the waves all the way to the horizon were stippled with light, while the bright stars were reflected and multiplied in the water like a myriad of diamonds.There was a breeze blowing just then, so there was no need for the present to keep steam up, as a sailor calls it.Steam is not nice on board ship, Warlock. There is a terrible noise, and everywhere the ship is shaken. You cannot help fancying you are inside a mill all the time, with such a multitude of wheels rattling round and round, that it quite bewilders one.But to-night there was hardly a hush on deck, except now and then the trampling of the sailors’ feet, or a song borne aft from the forecastle.I was not a ship’s cat yet, you know, Warlock, and so didn’t know the names of things. But I soon found a guide, or rather the guide found me. I was standing on the quarter-deck, as it is called, looking about me in a very uncertain kind of way, when I heard soft footsteps stealing up behind me, and, looking round, was rather startled to see standing there in the moonlight, which made him look double the size, an immense black Thomas cat, with yellow fiery eyes.I was going to bolt down the stairs again at once, and ask my master to come and shoot him, but there was a sort of music in his voice which appealed to me the moment he spoke.“Oh, you lovely, angelic pussy princess,” he said; “be not afraid, I pray you. Hurry not away, for if you leave the deck the moon will cease to shine, and the stars will lose their radiance.”He advanced stealthily towards me as he spoke, singing aloud. But I sprang upon the skylight at once, raised my back and growled, as much probably in terror as in anger.“Come but one step nearer,” I cried, “and I will leap into the foaming sea.”“Dear princess,” he said, “I would rather lose my life. I would rather throw my body to the sharks than any ill should happen to a hair of your head.”“See,” he continued, jumping on the top of a kind of wooden fence, which sailors call the bulwarks, that ran round, what I then called the lid (deck) of the ship. “See! speak the word, and I shall rid you for ever of my hateful presence!”I was very much afraid then.I did not want to see this Thomas cat drowned before my eyes, for although he was very black, I could not help noticing that he was comely.“Oh,” I cried, “come down from off that fearful fence and I will forgive you, perhaps even take you into favour.”Well, Warlock, strange though it may appear, in three minutes’ time this Thomas cat and I were as good friends as if we had known each other for years.“You are very lovely,” he said. “Strange how extremes meet, for I have been told that I am quite ugly. Your coat is snow-white, mine is like the raven’s wing. Your fur is long and soft and silky, my hair is short and rough, and there are brown holes burned in it here and there, where sailors have dropped the ashes from their pipes. You are doubtless as spotless in character as you are in coat; but—well, Shireen, the cook has sometimes hinted to me that as far as my ethics are concerned I—I am not strictly honest. Sometimes the cook has hinted that to me by word of mouth, at other times, Shireen, with a wooden ladle.”“But come,” he added, “let me show you round the ship.”“May I ask your name,” I said; “you already know mine?”“My name is Tom.”“A very uncommon name, I daresay.”“Well—yaas. But therearea few English cats of that name, as you may yet find out. My last name is Brandy. Tom Brandy, (Tom Brandy is a sketch from the life) there you have it all complete. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”“It does, indeed. Has it any meaning attached to it?”“Well, then, it has. Brandy is a kind of fluid that some sailors swallow when they go on shore. They have often tried to make me take some, but I never would with my free will. It turns men into fiends, Shireen. For in a short time after they swallow it they appear to be excellent fellows, and they sing songs and shake hands, and vow to each other vows of undying love and affection. But soon after that they quarrel and fight most fiercely, and often take each other’s lives, as I have known them to do in the camps among the miners out in Australia, where I was born.”“Oh, have you been in a real mine, Tom?”“Yes, I first opened my eyes at the diggings.”“Oh, how lovely! Was it at Golconda. I have heard Beebee, my mistress, read about Golconda in a book. And were there rubies and diamonds and amethysts all lying about, and gold and silver?”“Not much of that, Shireen. My bed was a grimy old coat, belonging to one of the miners. My home was a wet and dark slimy hole, and the miners were not very romantic. They were as rough as rough could be. Any sailor you see here would look like a prince beside a miner. But though as rough as any of them, my master, a tall red man, with a long red beard, was kind-hearted, and for his sake I stayed in camp longer than I would otherwise have done.“When I was old enough to catch my first rat the miners crowded round me, and said they would baptise me inaguardiente; that was the fiery stuff they were drinking, and so they did. Some of it got into my eyes and hurt them very much. That is how I was called Tom Brandy.“Another day, when I was grown up, they forced some spoonfuls of brandy and water down my throat, and by-and-bye I seemed to get out of my mind. I walked round the camp and challenged every other he cat in the place, and fought almost as bad as a miner.“I was always death on dogs, Shireen, but that night there wasn’t a dog anywhere about that I did not try to swallow alive, for I believed myself to be as big as an elephant. My master found me at last, and kindly took me home and laid me on his old coat in the corner, and I soon fell sound asleep, but, oh, Shireen, when I awoke next day my head and eyes were fit to burst with pain.“Then, by-and-bye, there came a parson to our camp, and my master would walk miles to hear the preaching, and I always went with him. When there were many dogs about master used to lead me with a string, but he never chained me up in his house, as some miners did with their big cats. It is cruel to chain a dog even, but much more cruel to chain a cat.“Well, master was what they call a rolling stone; one of the sort that don’t gather moss, you know. So he often changed camp. It took us two days and nights sometimes to get to the new camp, and I travelled all the way in an old gin case.“Poor master!”“Did he die?” said I.“Well, it was like this. Often and often on lovely moonlit nights, Shireen, master and I would sit in the door of the hut where he lived out among the bush and scrub, and he would speak to me of his far-off home in England, and of his young wife and children that he was trying to dig gold for.“‘It is that,’ he told me once, ‘which makes me so restless, Tom. I want to get money. I want to get home to them, pussy, and I’ll take you with me and we’ll be so happy.’“And he would smooth my head and sing to me of the happy time that was coming when we should get home with wealth and riches.“‘When the wild wintry windIdly raves round our dwelling,And the roar of the linnOn the night breeze is swelling;So merrily we’ll sing,As the storm rattles o’er us,Till the dear shieling (a cottage) ringWith the light lilting chorus.’”“But, ah! Shireen, that happy time never came, for one sad night, at the stores, a quarrel arose about something, and next moment the noise of pistol-shooting rang out high above the din of voices.“There was a moment or two of intense stillness, and my master fell back into the arms of a friend.“‘Oh, my dear wife and bairns!’ That was all master had breath to say before his death-blood rose and choked him.“They told me I nearly went wild with grief, that I jumped upon his breast and cried and howled. Well, perhaps I did. I forget most of what happened. Only I know they buried him next day, and I sat on the grave for days, refusing to leave it. Then I wandered off to Melbourne. I thought if I could only get home and find master’s wife, and children, I might be a comfort to them. But this was impossible.“Well, I stayed for some months in Melbourne, just a waif and a stray, you know, begging my bread from door to door. Then theVenom, the very ship we are now on, Shireen, lay in, and when walking one night near the docks, a sailor came singing along the street. He looked so good and so brown and so jolly that my heart went out to him at once, and I spoke to him.“‘Hullo!’ he cried, ‘what a fine lump of a cat. Why, youarethin though, Tom.’”“How did he know your name?” said I.“Oh, just guessed it, I suppose.“‘How thin you are!’ he says. ‘Well, on board you goes with me, and you shall be our ship’s cat, and if any man Jack bullies you, why they’ll have to fight Bill Bobstay.’ And that is how I came to be a ship’s cat, my lovely Shireen.”“Nobody objected to your being on board, I suppose,” said I.“Well, I don’t know, for you see, next day was Sunday, and seeing they were rigging up a church on the main deck, I went and sat down by the parson very demure-like, as I had sat beside poor master in the miners’ camp.“Then, after church, the first lieutenant asked the men, who brought the cat on board. But of course nobody knew.“‘Throw him overboard,’ cried the lieutenant.“‘No, no,’ said the captain. ‘That will never do, Mr Jones. The poor cat is welcome to his bite and sup as long as he likes to stop with us, whoever brought him on board.’“Then a man in the ranks saluted.“‘Did you want to say anything?’ said Captain Beecroft.“‘Well, sir,’ said the man, ‘I wouldn’t like any of my pals to be blamed for a-bringing of Tom from shore, ’causeIdid, and you may flog me if you like.’“‘No, no, my man, instead of flogging you I’ll forgive you. I like my men to be bold and outspoken just as you are.’“And from that day to this, three long years, Shireen, I’ve been ship’s cat to the saucyVenom, and, what is more, I like it.“Now, if you please, I’ll take you forward, and you can see the men’s quarters.”“What are those three trees growing on the lid of the ship for, Tom?” I asked.“Those are not trees, Shireen,” he answered; “those are what they call ship’s masts, and you must not say the lid of the ship, but the deck.”“Thank you, Tom. And are those sheets hung up yonder to dry, Tom?”“Oh, no, those are the ship’s sails. They carry the vessel along before the wind when the steam isn’t up. Look down into that hole, Shireen. Take care you don’t fall. Do you see all those clear glittering shafts and cranks and things? Well, those are the engines. Keep well away from them when they begin to move, else you might tumble in and be killed in a moment.”“How strange and terrible!” I said.Well, children, Tom took me everywhere all over the ship, and even introduced me to the men.“My eyes, Bill,” said one man, “here’s a beauty. Did you ever see the like of her before? White’s the snow; long coat and eyes like a forget-me-not. Stand well back, Bill. Don’t smoke over her. She belongs to that soldier officer, and I’ll warrant he wouldn’t like a hole burned in that beautiful jacket she wears.”But oh, children, for many weeks I thought ship-life was about the most awkward thing out, for when it isn’t blowing enough to send the vessel on through the water, then, you know, they start the mill and the rattling wheels, and your poor life is nearly shaken out of you, while the blacks keep falling all about, and if a lady has a white coat like mine, why—why it won’t bear thinking about. And if it does blow, Warlock, well, then it is too awkward for anything, and sometimes it was about all Tom Brandy could do to hang out, although his claws were sharper and stronger far than mine.But long before we reached the city of Zanzibar I was, I think, quite as good a ship’s cat as Tom Brandy himself.I’ll never forget, however, the first day Tom took me aloft.We went as far as the maintop, and there we sat together talking for quite an hour.“Hullo!” said Tom at last, “there goes eight bells and the bugle for dinner; come on, Shireen.”Tom began to go down at once, but lo! when I looked over my heart grew faint and my head felt giddy, and I wouldn’t have ventured after Tom for anything.“No, no, Tom,” I cried, “save yourself. Never mind me.”“Why, there is no danger,” he answered. “Only you mustn’t try it head first as if you were coming out of a tree, but hand after hand, thus.”And Tom soon disappeared.I sat there till the shades of evening began to fall. Tom, however, hadn’t quite forgotten me, for he brought me up the breast of a chicken.After I had partaken of it: “Will you try to come down now, Shireen?” he said.“No, Tom,” I replied. “I shall end my days up here. I—”I said no more. For at that moment a rough red face appeared over the top.It was the honest sailor-man who had brought Tom Brandy on board, and he soon solved the difficulty by taking me down under his arm.But I gained confidence after this, and was soon able to run up even to the top-gallant crosstrees, and come down again feet first, and hand after hand, just like Tom Brandy himself.I’ll never forget the first day I heard the guns go off. Tom told me it was nothing. That we were merely chasing a slave-ship, and that the moment she lay to our brave sailors would board her, and very soon make an end of the Arabs.Tom and I had crept into the largest gun that day, having found the tompion out. She was called a bow-chaser, whatever that may be, and she stood on a pivot away forward. The sun had been fearfully hot that forenoon, but Tom came aft to the quarter-deck, where I was lying panting, with my mouth open.“Very hot, isn’t it?” said Tom.“I feel roasting,” I replied.“Well, follow me,” he said. “I know where it is dark and cool enough for anything. The tompion is out of the 56-pounder.”“Whatever do you mean? What is a tompion, Tom? And what is a 56-pounder?”“Come on and see, Shireen.”Then we went to the gun.“Follow your leader,” cried Tom, and in he crawled and soon was lost to view.“But why, Tom?” I cried; “it must be dirty as well as dark. I’m afraid of soiling my coat.”Tom looked out of the gun to laugh.“Oh, Shireen!” he said, “the idea of a Royal Navy gun being dirty. I wonder what the gunner would say if you told him?”So, half ashamed of myself, I jumped in. It was delightfully nice and cool, and so my companion and I fell sound asleep.I was awakened before Tom by a voice. “Can’t load the bow-chaser, sir. Cats have both gone to sleep in it, and I can’t get ’em out.”“Stick in a fuse,” cried the lieutenant, “and rouse them out.”Immediately after there was a rang-bang let off behind us, and Tom and I were blown clean out of the gun.We weren’t hurt, Warlock, for we both alighted on our feet; but, my blue eyes! I did get a scare.Tom said that was nothing. He often went to sleep in the gun, and, as to being blown out with a fuse, it didn’t even singe one, and was quicker than walking.But when the battle began in earnest, and the first gun went off, I bolted aft with my tail like a bottle-brush, and dived down below.I tore in through the wardroom, and did not consider myself safe until I got into my master’s bed.The battle didn’t last long. Tom told me it was only a small slaver. But she was captured, and towed astern, and Tom said there was some talk of hanging one or two of the Arabs, but I didn’t know anything about this. I was very pleased the fight was over.Three slaves were brought on board. One was a little boy, with no more clothes on than a mermaid. And he was so black, children, that when he crawled up and put his arms round my neck, I quite expected to see a black ring round me next time I looked in the glass.But the blackness didn’t come off.Strangely enough, this poor little black child and I grew very great friends indeed.I think that by this time, however, there wasn’t an officer or man in the ship, fore or aft, that didn’t love me very much.
As soon as I got on deck I began to glance eagerly about me.
The moon was shining very brightly, and the waves all the way to the horizon were stippled with light, while the bright stars were reflected and multiplied in the water like a myriad of diamonds.
There was a breeze blowing just then, so there was no need for the present to keep steam up, as a sailor calls it.
Steam is not nice on board ship, Warlock. There is a terrible noise, and everywhere the ship is shaken. You cannot help fancying you are inside a mill all the time, with such a multitude of wheels rattling round and round, that it quite bewilders one.
But to-night there was hardly a hush on deck, except now and then the trampling of the sailors’ feet, or a song borne aft from the forecastle.
I was not a ship’s cat yet, you know, Warlock, and so didn’t know the names of things. But I soon found a guide, or rather the guide found me. I was standing on the quarter-deck, as it is called, looking about me in a very uncertain kind of way, when I heard soft footsteps stealing up behind me, and, looking round, was rather startled to see standing there in the moonlight, which made him look double the size, an immense black Thomas cat, with yellow fiery eyes.
I was going to bolt down the stairs again at once, and ask my master to come and shoot him, but there was a sort of music in his voice which appealed to me the moment he spoke.
“Oh, you lovely, angelic pussy princess,” he said; “be not afraid, I pray you. Hurry not away, for if you leave the deck the moon will cease to shine, and the stars will lose their radiance.”
He advanced stealthily towards me as he spoke, singing aloud. But I sprang upon the skylight at once, raised my back and growled, as much probably in terror as in anger.
“Come but one step nearer,” I cried, “and I will leap into the foaming sea.”
“Dear princess,” he said, “I would rather lose my life. I would rather throw my body to the sharks than any ill should happen to a hair of your head.”
“See,” he continued, jumping on the top of a kind of wooden fence, which sailors call the bulwarks, that ran round, what I then called the lid (deck) of the ship. “See! speak the word, and I shall rid you for ever of my hateful presence!”
I was very much afraid then.
I did not want to see this Thomas cat drowned before my eyes, for although he was very black, I could not help noticing that he was comely.
“Oh,” I cried, “come down from off that fearful fence and I will forgive you, perhaps even take you into favour.”
Well, Warlock, strange though it may appear, in three minutes’ time this Thomas cat and I were as good friends as if we had known each other for years.
“You are very lovely,” he said. “Strange how extremes meet, for I have been told that I am quite ugly. Your coat is snow-white, mine is like the raven’s wing. Your fur is long and soft and silky, my hair is short and rough, and there are brown holes burned in it here and there, where sailors have dropped the ashes from their pipes. You are doubtless as spotless in character as you are in coat; but—well, Shireen, the cook has sometimes hinted to me that as far as my ethics are concerned I—I am not strictly honest. Sometimes the cook has hinted that to me by word of mouth, at other times, Shireen, with a wooden ladle.”
“But come,” he added, “let me show you round the ship.”
“May I ask your name,” I said; “you already know mine?”
“My name is Tom.”
“A very uncommon name, I daresay.”
“Well—yaas. But therearea few English cats of that name, as you may yet find out. My last name is Brandy. Tom Brandy, (Tom Brandy is a sketch from the life) there you have it all complete. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
“It does, indeed. Has it any meaning attached to it?”
“Well, then, it has. Brandy is a kind of fluid that some sailors swallow when they go on shore. They have often tried to make me take some, but I never would with my free will. It turns men into fiends, Shireen. For in a short time after they swallow it they appear to be excellent fellows, and they sing songs and shake hands, and vow to each other vows of undying love and affection. But soon after that they quarrel and fight most fiercely, and often take each other’s lives, as I have known them to do in the camps among the miners out in Australia, where I was born.”
“Oh, have you been in a real mine, Tom?”
“Yes, I first opened my eyes at the diggings.”
“Oh, how lovely! Was it at Golconda. I have heard Beebee, my mistress, read about Golconda in a book. And were there rubies and diamonds and amethysts all lying about, and gold and silver?”
“Not much of that, Shireen. My bed was a grimy old coat, belonging to one of the miners. My home was a wet and dark slimy hole, and the miners were not very romantic. They were as rough as rough could be. Any sailor you see here would look like a prince beside a miner. But though as rough as any of them, my master, a tall red man, with a long red beard, was kind-hearted, and for his sake I stayed in camp longer than I would otherwise have done.
“When I was old enough to catch my first rat the miners crowded round me, and said they would baptise me inaguardiente; that was the fiery stuff they were drinking, and so they did. Some of it got into my eyes and hurt them very much. That is how I was called Tom Brandy.
“Another day, when I was grown up, they forced some spoonfuls of brandy and water down my throat, and by-and-bye I seemed to get out of my mind. I walked round the camp and challenged every other he cat in the place, and fought almost as bad as a miner.
“I was always death on dogs, Shireen, but that night there wasn’t a dog anywhere about that I did not try to swallow alive, for I believed myself to be as big as an elephant. My master found me at last, and kindly took me home and laid me on his old coat in the corner, and I soon fell sound asleep, but, oh, Shireen, when I awoke next day my head and eyes were fit to burst with pain.
“Then, by-and-bye, there came a parson to our camp, and my master would walk miles to hear the preaching, and I always went with him. When there were many dogs about master used to lead me with a string, but he never chained me up in his house, as some miners did with their big cats. It is cruel to chain a dog even, but much more cruel to chain a cat.
“Well, master was what they call a rolling stone; one of the sort that don’t gather moss, you know. So he often changed camp. It took us two days and nights sometimes to get to the new camp, and I travelled all the way in an old gin case.
“Poor master!”
“Did he die?” said I.
“Well, it was like this. Often and often on lovely moonlit nights, Shireen, master and I would sit in the door of the hut where he lived out among the bush and scrub, and he would speak to me of his far-off home in England, and of his young wife and children that he was trying to dig gold for.
“‘It is that,’ he told me once, ‘which makes me so restless, Tom. I want to get money. I want to get home to them, pussy, and I’ll take you with me and we’ll be so happy.’
“And he would smooth my head and sing to me of the happy time that was coming when we should get home with wealth and riches.
“‘When the wild wintry windIdly raves round our dwelling,And the roar of the linnOn the night breeze is swelling;So merrily we’ll sing,As the storm rattles o’er us,Till the dear shieling (a cottage) ringWith the light lilting chorus.’”
“‘When the wild wintry windIdly raves round our dwelling,And the roar of the linnOn the night breeze is swelling;So merrily we’ll sing,As the storm rattles o’er us,Till the dear shieling (a cottage) ringWith the light lilting chorus.’”
“But, ah! Shireen, that happy time never came, for one sad night, at the stores, a quarrel arose about something, and next moment the noise of pistol-shooting rang out high above the din of voices.
“There was a moment or two of intense stillness, and my master fell back into the arms of a friend.
“‘Oh, my dear wife and bairns!’ That was all master had breath to say before his death-blood rose and choked him.
“They told me I nearly went wild with grief, that I jumped upon his breast and cried and howled. Well, perhaps I did. I forget most of what happened. Only I know they buried him next day, and I sat on the grave for days, refusing to leave it. Then I wandered off to Melbourne. I thought if I could only get home and find master’s wife, and children, I might be a comfort to them. But this was impossible.
“Well, I stayed for some months in Melbourne, just a waif and a stray, you know, begging my bread from door to door. Then theVenom, the very ship we are now on, Shireen, lay in, and when walking one night near the docks, a sailor came singing along the street. He looked so good and so brown and so jolly that my heart went out to him at once, and I spoke to him.
“‘Hullo!’ he cried, ‘what a fine lump of a cat. Why, youarethin though, Tom.’”
“How did he know your name?” said I.
“Oh, just guessed it, I suppose.
“‘How thin you are!’ he says. ‘Well, on board you goes with me, and you shall be our ship’s cat, and if any man Jack bullies you, why they’ll have to fight Bill Bobstay.’ And that is how I came to be a ship’s cat, my lovely Shireen.”
“Nobody objected to your being on board, I suppose,” said I.
“Well, I don’t know, for you see, next day was Sunday, and seeing they were rigging up a church on the main deck, I went and sat down by the parson very demure-like, as I had sat beside poor master in the miners’ camp.
“Then, after church, the first lieutenant asked the men, who brought the cat on board. But of course nobody knew.
“‘Throw him overboard,’ cried the lieutenant.
“‘No, no,’ said the captain. ‘That will never do, Mr Jones. The poor cat is welcome to his bite and sup as long as he likes to stop with us, whoever brought him on board.’
“Then a man in the ranks saluted.
“‘Did you want to say anything?’ said Captain Beecroft.
“‘Well, sir,’ said the man, ‘I wouldn’t like any of my pals to be blamed for a-bringing of Tom from shore, ’causeIdid, and you may flog me if you like.’
“‘No, no, my man, instead of flogging you I’ll forgive you. I like my men to be bold and outspoken just as you are.’
“And from that day to this, three long years, Shireen, I’ve been ship’s cat to the saucyVenom, and, what is more, I like it.
“Now, if you please, I’ll take you forward, and you can see the men’s quarters.”
“What are those three trees growing on the lid of the ship for, Tom?” I asked.
“Those are not trees, Shireen,” he answered; “those are what they call ship’s masts, and you must not say the lid of the ship, but the deck.”
“Thank you, Tom. And are those sheets hung up yonder to dry, Tom?”
“Oh, no, those are the ship’s sails. They carry the vessel along before the wind when the steam isn’t up. Look down into that hole, Shireen. Take care you don’t fall. Do you see all those clear glittering shafts and cranks and things? Well, those are the engines. Keep well away from them when they begin to move, else you might tumble in and be killed in a moment.”
“How strange and terrible!” I said.
Well, children, Tom took me everywhere all over the ship, and even introduced me to the men.
“My eyes, Bill,” said one man, “here’s a beauty. Did you ever see the like of her before? White’s the snow; long coat and eyes like a forget-me-not. Stand well back, Bill. Don’t smoke over her. She belongs to that soldier officer, and I’ll warrant he wouldn’t like a hole burned in that beautiful jacket she wears.”
But oh, children, for many weeks I thought ship-life was about the most awkward thing out, for when it isn’t blowing enough to send the vessel on through the water, then, you know, they start the mill and the rattling wheels, and your poor life is nearly shaken out of you, while the blacks keep falling all about, and if a lady has a white coat like mine, why—why it won’t bear thinking about. And if it does blow, Warlock, well, then it is too awkward for anything, and sometimes it was about all Tom Brandy could do to hang out, although his claws were sharper and stronger far than mine.
But long before we reached the city of Zanzibar I was, I think, quite as good a ship’s cat as Tom Brandy himself.
I’ll never forget, however, the first day Tom took me aloft.
We went as far as the maintop, and there we sat together talking for quite an hour.
“Hullo!” said Tom at last, “there goes eight bells and the bugle for dinner; come on, Shireen.”
Tom began to go down at once, but lo! when I looked over my heart grew faint and my head felt giddy, and I wouldn’t have ventured after Tom for anything.
“No, no, Tom,” I cried, “save yourself. Never mind me.”
“Why, there is no danger,” he answered. “Only you mustn’t try it head first as if you were coming out of a tree, but hand after hand, thus.”
And Tom soon disappeared.
I sat there till the shades of evening began to fall. Tom, however, hadn’t quite forgotten me, for he brought me up the breast of a chicken.
After I had partaken of it: “Will you try to come down now, Shireen?” he said.
“No, Tom,” I replied. “I shall end my days up here. I—”
I said no more. For at that moment a rough red face appeared over the top.
It was the honest sailor-man who had brought Tom Brandy on board, and he soon solved the difficulty by taking me down under his arm.
But I gained confidence after this, and was soon able to run up even to the top-gallant crosstrees, and come down again feet first, and hand after hand, just like Tom Brandy himself.
I’ll never forget the first day I heard the guns go off. Tom told me it was nothing. That we were merely chasing a slave-ship, and that the moment she lay to our brave sailors would board her, and very soon make an end of the Arabs.
Tom and I had crept into the largest gun that day, having found the tompion out. She was called a bow-chaser, whatever that may be, and she stood on a pivot away forward. The sun had been fearfully hot that forenoon, but Tom came aft to the quarter-deck, where I was lying panting, with my mouth open.
“Very hot, isn’t it?” said Tom.
“I feel roasting,” I replied.
“Well, follow me,” he said. “I know where it is dark and cool enough for anything. The tompion is out of the 56-pounder.”
“Whatever do you mean? What is a tompion, Tom? And what is a 56-pounder?”
“Come on and see, Shireen.”
Then we went to the gun.
“Follow your leader,” cried Tom, and in he crawled and soon was lost to view.
“But why, Tom?” I cried; “it must be dirty as well as dark. I’m afraid of soiling my coat.”
Tom looked out of the gun to laugh.
“Oh, Shireen!” he said, “the idea of a Royal Navy gun being dirty. I wonder what the gunner would say if you told him?”
So, half ashamed of myself, I jumped in. It was delightfully nice and cool, and so my companion and I fell sound asleep.
I was awakened before Tom by a voice. “Can’t load the bow-chaser, sir. Cats have both gone to sleep in it, and I can’t get ’em out.”
“Stick in a fuse,” cried the lieutenant, “and rouse them out.”
Immediately after there was a rang-bang let off behind us, and Tom and I were blown clean out of the gun.
We weren’t hurt, Warlock, for we both alighted on our feet; but, my blue eyes! I did get a scare.
Tom said that was nothing. He often went to sleep in the gun, and, as to being blown out with a fuse, it didn’t even singe one, and was quicker than walking.
But when the battle began in earnest, and the first gun went off, I bolted aft with my tail like a bottle-brush, and dived down below.
I tore in through the wardroom, and did not consider myself safe until I got into my master’s bed.
The battle didn’t last long. Tom told me it was only a small slaver. But she was captured, and towed astern, and Tom said there was some talk of hanging one or two of the Arabs, but I didn’t know anything about this. I was very pleased the fight was over.
Three slaves were brought on board. One was a little boy, with no more clothes on than a mermaid. And he was so black, children, that when he crawled up and put his arms round my neck, I quite expected to see a black ring round me next time I looked in the glass.
But the blackness didn’t come off.
Strangely enough, this poor little black child and I grew very great friends indeed.
I think that by this time, however, there wasn’t an officer or man in the ship, fore or aft, that didn’t love me very much.
Chapter Twelve.Old Shipmates.Tom and I, continued Shireen, weren’t the only pets on board theVenom. There was a monkey though, and a very large one he was. When he stood up he was as big as a second-class boy. The sailors had dressed him as a marine, and given him a wooden gun, and taught him to shake hands and salute. His name was Joe; but I’m sure he wasn’t happy, I often saw tears in his eyes, or thought I did. Perhaps he had been taken from his home, far away in the beautiful forests of Africa, and had left a wife and children behind him.We had a mongoose too—a sly old grey creature that the men petted. But Tom never took to him, and used sometimes to whack him when nobody was looking.We had a large chameleon just like Chammy,—and I wonder where Chammy is—our ship’s chameleon lived in an old coffee-pot that was turned down on its side like a kennel in the corner of the doctor’s cabin. He was chained to this just like a doggie, and used to catch little cockroaches and hammer-legged flies for himself all day.In another part of the doctor’s cabin was a lizard four feet long, that looked terribly fierce and dangerous, he was also secured with a chain. In a hatbox, in the doctor’s cabin, lived a beautiful bronze-winged pigeon, who purred like a cat. Tom said he must be awfully good to eat, but he wouldn’t venture into the cabin for anything, owing to the dragon that was chained in the corner.We had in the wardroom a grey parrot with a red tail that he was very proud of. And all the week through the parrot was allowed to go on deck if he liked, but not on Sundays, because once when he came to church in the middle of the service he set everybody laughing by calling the parson “Old Boots.”The sailors now began to teach me tricks, and seeing that it pleased them very much, I tried to learn my lessons as quickly as possible.On fine evenings then at smoking time, the men would call me forward, and a ring would be formed near to the winch and between the bows.Jumping backwards and forwards over a stick, or over a man’s clasped hands, was nothing. Heigho! my dear children, this happened twenty years ago, although I remember it as if it were but yesterday. Well, I was supple and strong, and lithe of limb in those dear days, being little more than a kitten, and a man could hardly hold a stick so high that I couldn’t spring over it.As soon as I was fairly well accomplished at this work, a piece of iron wire, bent in a half hoop, was used instead of the stick, and every night the sailor who was teaching me brought the two ends of the wire nearer and nearer, until at last it was a whole hoop and nothing else.Next he covered the hoop half over with paper, leaving just a hole, but I was determined not to be beaten, and through I went.One evening, to my surprise, the hoop was all covered with thin paper; nevertheless, when the man spoke kindly to me, and asked me to leap, through I went, and my education in leaping was supposed to be complete.This man was afterwards called aft to the quarter-deck, and there, to the delight and amusement of the officers, and the envy of the mongoose, who couldn’t jump a bit, I went through the whole performance, and was applauded sky-high.“Pussy,” said my master laughing, as he took me and fondled me in his arms, “I never knew before that you were a play actor.”There were no rats on board theVenom, so Tom and I had an idle time of it. When Tom first came on board ship in Australia, there had been a large number of these nasty creatures in the vessel. They used to eat everything, and sometimes they got into the men’s hammocks for warmth, and slept with them all throughout the watch-in. Put Tom cleared the ship by degrees.“That must have been fine fun,” said Warlock; “but it must have been dull times for Tom and you—no rats, no sport.”“But,” added wise, wee Warlock, with a sigh, “it will be as bad in this country, Tabby, before long.”“Yes,” said Tabby.“What I would propose if I were in Parliament,” said Warlock, “would be this. We have a close season for birds, and even for seals, so we ought to have a close season for rats also.”“Bravo! Bravo! tse, tse, tse!” cried Dick.“Then if we had a close season for rats, though the farmers might grumble a bit, Tabby and I would have sport, and it is everybody for himself in this world. But, dear Mother Shireen, we are interrupting the easy flow of your narrative. Pray go on.”Yes, Warlock, and I think if you wait for sport till a close season for rats becomes the law of the land, you’ll be pretty old and stiff before you get it. But on board the saucyVenom, although Tom and I scorned to catch cockroaches like the big ape and the mongoose, we had fine fun at night fishing.“Fishing?” cried Tabby. “Why, whatever did you catch, Mother Shireen? Sharks?”No, my dear, nor whales either, though a shark once nearly caught me. No, we caught flying fish, Tom and I.“Tse, tse, tse!” from Dick.I observe that Dick is much surprised. Perhaps he thinks I am becoming foolish in my old age. Not a bit of it, Dick. Tom taught me how to catch the flying fish, and I soon became a very apt pupil indeed. And easy work it was. You see, flying fish instead of being chased by dolphins, though they sometimes may be, or by sharks either, are generally out in shoals, looking for their own food, and they fly, Warlock, just for the fun of the thing.“For sport like?” said Warlock.Yes, Warlock, for sport.Well, they always will fly to a light, and so all Tom and I had to do was to sit on the top of the bulwarks and look down. The starlight, flashing in our eyes, soon attracted the attention of the fish, and they jumped over our heads, and danced a jig on the deck behind us.Then Tom and I went and had a very nice little supper, and there was always more than we could eat, so the men on watch had some too.“Well, that is good,” said Tabby. “I’ve tried my hand at trout fishing, but I never heard of flying-fish catching like that before.”“Trout fishing,” said Shireen, “is what I should call mere bottom fishing.”“Yes, and you do go to the bottom too, with a plump.”Shireen laughed.“It may be all very well for short-haired Tabbies like you, my dear,” she remarked. “But, la! to get my jacket wet would entirely spoil it; besides, you know, I’m not so young as you. If I got wet I should be laid up with the rheumatics for a month to a dead certainty. Heigho! it might be adeadcertainty too, though that, children, is only my little joke. But tell us Tabby, how you got on fishing.”Tabby sat up for a moment, and Dick flew off her back, crying,—“I say, I say, what is it? you r-r-rascal!”“Well,” said Tabby, “it wasn’t with me that the catching of trout originated, nor with Warlock either. It happened thus. In a cottage near the forest, a year or two ago, there came an old maiden lady to live, who was very fond indeed of cats. She had three altogether, and she very wisely permitted them to roam about at the freedom of their own will. Two of her cats were ladies, the other was a fine red fellow, of the name of Joe.“The gamekeepers said that Joe was a noted thief, and that he caught their birds and their leverets also, and that they would shoot him on sight. When the old lady heard this, she went straight to the keepers’ huts by the forest edge. Joe was trotting by her side, but as soon as they were within fifty yards of the cottages, Joe got up on his mistress’s shoulder. She was a strong old lady, and armed with a two-horse power umbrella in one hand, and a big book in the other.“‘Do you see this cat?’ said Miss Simmonds to the head keeper.“‘Can’t help seeing him, miss,’ he answered, ‘besides, we know him; he kills our birds and our leverets too, and we’ve seen him take a grilse out of the river!’“‘Well, that is a pity; I just called to say that I was sorry, and that I will do my best to keep Joe at home, though this is difficult sometimes with a tom-cat, you know. But if he kills a bird or a leveret, you must let me know the amount of damage, and I’ll pay. But,’ she added, ‘you must not take the law into your own hands and shoot my cat.’“‘Nonsense, miss!’ cried the keeper, pointing to a board on which was printed:“Trespassers will be Prosecuted.”“Dogs will be Shot.”“‘That’s the way we serves dogs, miss, and it isn’t likely we’ll trouble about sparing a cat.’“Then Miss Simmonds stuck her big umbrella ferule down in the turf, and took the big book from under her arm.“‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Ahem!CornerversusChampneys. 2 Marsh, 584. A gamekeeper has no right to kill a dog for following game, even although the owner of the dog has received notice that trespassing dogs will be shot. In such a case as this, the shooter must pay the full price of the animal shot.’“‘Didn’t know that before,’ said the keeper. ‘But, begging your pardon, miss, cats are not dogs.’“‘The same law holds good, sir.’“‘Cats can be trapped, miss.’“‘Listen again,’ said Miss Simmonds. ‘TownsendversusWithan. In this case it was ruled that the defendant was answerable to the plaintiff for injuries sustained by his cat and dog in a trap, although he had no intention of injuring plaintiff, and meant only to catch foxes and vermin.’“‘Poison, miss, is a quiet way of getting rid of cats. I’ll try that.’“Once again, Miss Simmonds turned over the pages of her book, and proved to the satisfaction of even those surly keepers, that the putting down of poisoned flesh in a field laid the perpetrator under a penalty of 10 pounds.“Well, although Miss Simmonds laid down the law to those men, she did not part from them in an unfriendly way, and something bright and yellow passed from her hand to that of the keeper.“But in future Miss Simmonds restricted Joe’s liberty somewhat.“Well, one day, Warlock and I were sitting by the burn (a small stream or rivulet is so called in Scotland) somewhat disconsolately, for we hadn’t had very much sport that day, only a few field mice and a mole, when I heard a cat mew softly within a few yards of me.“I looked quickly round, and Warlock pricked up his ears, and prepared for instant combat.“It was Joe.“And very handsome he looked. I lost my heart to him at once.“‘Shall I give him a fit?’ said Warlock.“‘No, no,’ I cried hastily; ‘that is Joe.’“‘I’m a little afraid of your dog, miss,’ said Joe. ‘Will he bite?’“‘Oh, no, sir,’ I hastened to say.“Then Joe advanced.“All three soon got talking in quite a neighbourly kind of way, and the conversation naturally enough turned upon sport.“‘We haven’t done much this forenoon,’ I said.“‘Ah! then why don’t you catch trout?’“Just at that moment fire seemed to flash from Joe’s yellow eyes. His nose was turned towards the stream; he was crouching low with his tail all a-quiver. Next minute he had left the bank and disappeared with a splash in the water.“I was thunderstruck. So was Warlock. But Joe crept up the bank again almost directly, with a beautiful crimson-dotted yellow trout in his mouth.“This he placed at my feet as a love-offering. Then he shook himself once or twice, and seemed quite pleased to see me enjoy the trout, the head and tail of which I gave to Warlock.“‘Delightful, isn’t it?’ he said.“‘Delicious!’ I replied.“‘I’ve been a fisherman for over five years. You see, my late master had always been a disciple of Walton’s, and when only a kitten I used to sit and sing beside him, when packing his luncheon for the river’s side. I jumped up when he took down rod and basket, and would trot off with him all the way to the river. How eagerly I used to watch the skimming fly, and my master can make a lovely cast, and I couldn’t help being all of a tremble, and squaring my mouth, and emitting little screams of delight, when a fish rose to nibble; then when one was caught and thrown on the bank, nothing could prevent my jumping on it and killing it with blows of my paw. I did not put a tooth in it because master always fed me well, and I knew there was luncheon in the basket for me as well as for him.“‘But I soon learned to catch fish myself, and now I not only spring on them as you saw me do just now, but where the stream is shallow, I fish as I have seen schoolboys do; for lying down on the bank I stretch my paw far in under it, and very often hand out a trout.’“‘How clever!’ I said.“‘It is wonderful!’ said Warlock.“‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘you can do the same.’“‘Can I?’ asked Warlock.“‘No,’ said Joe smiling. ‘You’re only a dog, you know, but you can sit on a hillock, and watch and warn us if you see any fiend-boys coming along with catapults.’“So, as Joe’s late master had been a disciple of Walton’s, I became a disciple of Joe’s. I think, Shireen, that I have proved a very apt pupil, though not quite as good yet as Joe. For Joe takes to the water like an Irish spaniel, and he told me that he often caught eels and also water rats.“My fishing lessons have been an advantage to me and to Warlock too, because previously I used to be rather afraid of the water, and more than once when Warlock and I were out hunting, and he swam over a stream, I had to go miles up or down till I found a bridge. But now I leap in just as Warlock does, and swim to the other side.”Shireen got up and stretched herself now.“I’ll go on with my story another night,” she said.Then she jumped upon Colonel Clarkson’s knee.“How fond that cat seems to be of you,” said Ben.“Ah! yes, poor Shireen! She dearly loves both me and my wife. As for Lizzie and Tom, well, she adores them. But Tom here is such a good lad, and never pulls her about, for I have told him that pussy is very old, and, heigho! I daresay we’ll miss her some of these days.”“But we can lift Tabby, can’t we, uncle?” said Lizzie.“Well, I do think Tabby rather likes being teased just a very little, and I’m sure she would stand from you, Lizzie, treatment she would soon resent if Uncle Ben or I were going to resort to it.”“Getting late,” said Uncle Ben, starting up. “But,” he added, “somehow when the wind roars as it does to-night, and takes my thoughts away back to the stormy ocean, I cannot help talking.”“Won’t Cockie get wet?” said Mrs Clarkson. “Hadn’t you better leave him here to-night?”“Bless your innocence, my dear Mrs Clarkson, the bird would break his heart.”“Coakie wants to go home!” cried the cockatoo.It will be observed that the bird called himselfCoakie, not Cockie.But Ben produced a big red handkerchief, and simply tied Cockie up as if he had been a bundle of collars going to the wash.He placed the bundle under his arm, bade everybody good-night, then walked boldly forth into darkness and storm.
Tom and I, continued Shireen, weren’t the only pets on board theVenom. There was a monkey though, and a very large one he was. When he stood up he was as big as a second-class boy. The sailors had dressed him as a marine, and given him a wooden gun, and taught him to shake hands and salute. His name was Joe; but I’m sure he wasn’t happy, I often saw tears in his eyes, or thought I did. Perhaps he had been taken from his home, far away in the beautiful forests of Africa, and had left a wife and children behind him.
We had a mongoose too—a sly old grey creature that the men petted. But Tom never took to him, and used sometimes to whack him when nobody was looking.
We had a large chameleon just like Chammy,—and I wonder where Chammy is—our ship’s chameleon lived in an old coffee-pot that was turned down on its side like a kennel in the corner of the doctor’s cabin. He was chained to this just like a doggie, and used to catch little cockroaches and hammer-legged flies for himself all day.
In another part of the doctor’s cabin was a lizard four feet long, that looked terribly fierce and dangerous, he was also secured with a chain. In a hatbox, in the doctor’s cabin, lived a beautiful bronze-winged pigeon, who purred like a cat. Tom said he must be awfully good to eat, but he wouldn’t venture into the cabin for anything, owing to the dragon that was chained in the corner.
We had in the wardroom a grey parrot with a red tail that he was very proud of. And all the week through the parrot was allowed to go on deck if he liked, but not on Sundays, because once when he came to church in the middle of the service he set everybody laughing by calling the parson “Old Boots.”
The sailors now began to teach me tricks, and seeing that it pleased them very much, I tried to learn my lessons as quickly as possible.
On fine evenings then at smoking time, the men would call me forward, and a ring would be formed near to the winch and between the bows.
Jumping backwards and forwards over a stick, or over a man’s clasped hands, was nothing. Heigho! my dear children, this happened twenty years ago, although I remember it as if it were but yesterday. Well, I was supple and strong, and lithe of limb in those dear days, being little more than a kitten, and a man could hardly hold a stick so high that I couldn’t spring over it.
As soon as I was fairly well accomplished at this work, a piece of iron wire, bent in a half hoop, was used instead of the stick, and every night the sailor who was teaching me brought the two ends of the wire nearer and nearer, until at last it was a whole hoop and nothing else.
Next he covered the hoop half over with paper, leaving just a hole, but I was determined not to be beaten, and through I went.
One evening, to my surprise, the hoop was all covered with thin paper; nevertheless, when the man spoke kindly to me, and asked me to leap, through I went, and my education in leaping was supposed to be complete.
This man was afterwards called aft to the quarter-deck, and there, to the delight and amusement of the officers, and the envy of the mongoose, who couldn’t jump a bit, I went through the whole performance, and was applauded sky-high.
“Pussy,” said my master laughing, as he took me and fondled me in his arms, “I never knew before that you were a play actor.”
There were no rats on board theVenom, so Tom and I had an idle time of it. When Tom first came on board ship in Australia, there had been a large number of these nasty creatures in the vessel. They used to eat everything, and sometimes they got into the men’s hammocks for warmth, and slept with them all throughout the watch-in. Put Tom cleared the ship by degrees.
“That must have been fine fun,” said Warlock; “but it must have been dull times for Tom and you—no rats, no sport.”
“But,” added wise, wee Warlock, with a sigh, “it will be as bad in this country, Tabby, before long.”
“Yes,” said Tabby.
“What I would propose if I were in Parliament,” said Warlock, “would be this. We have a close season for birds, and even for seals, so we ought to have a close season for rats also.”
“Bravo! Bravo! tse, tse, tse!” cried Dick.
“Then if we had a close season for rats, though the farmers might grumble a bit, Tabby and I would have sport, and it is everybody for himself in this world. But, dear Mother Shireen, we are interrupting the easy flow of your narrative. Pray go on.”
Yes, Warlock, and I think if you wait for sport till a close season for rats becomes the law of the land, you’ll be pretty old and stiff before you get it. But on board the saucyVenom, although Tom and I scorned to catch cockroaches like the big ape and the mongoose, we had fine fun at night fishing.
“Fishing?” cried Tabby. “Why, whatever did you catch, Mother Shireen? Sharks?”
No, my dear, nor whales either, though a shark once nearly caught me. No, we caught flying fish, Tom and I.
“Tse, tse, tse!” from Dick.
I observe that Dick is much surprised. Perhaps he thinks I am becoming foolish in my old age. Not a bit of it, Dick. Tom taught me how to catch the flying fish, and I soon became a very apt pupil indeed. And easy work it was. You see, flying fish instead of being chased by dolphins, though they sometimes may be, or by sharks either, are generally out in shoals, looking for their own food, and they fly, Warlock, just for the fun of the thing.
“For sport like?” said Warlock.
Yes, Warlock, for sport.
Well, they always will fly to a light, and so all Tom and I had to do was to sit on the top of the bulwarks and look down. The starlight, flashing in our eyes, soon attracted the attention of the fish, and they jumped over our heads, and danced a jig on the deck behind us.
Then Tom and I went and had a very nice little supper, and there was always more than we could eat, so the men on watch had some too.
“Well, that is good,” said Tabby. “I’ve tried my hand at trout fishing, but I never heard of flying-fish catching like that before.”
“Trout fishing,” said Shireen, “is what I should call mere bottom fishing.”
“Yes, and you do go to the bottom too, with a plump.”
Shireen laughed.
“It may be all very well for short-haired Tabbies like you, my dear,” she remarked. “But, la! to get my jacket wet would entirely spoil it; besides, you know, I’m not so young as you. If I got wet I should be laid up with the rheumatics for a month to a dead certainty. Heigho! it might be adeadcertainty too, though that, children, is only my little joke. But tell us Tabby, how you got on fishing.”
Tabby sat up for a moment, and Dick flew off her back, crying,—
“I say, I say, what is it? you r-r-rascal!”
“Well,” said Tabby, “it wasn’t with me that the catching of trout originated, nor with Warlock either. It happened thus. In a cottage near the forest, a year or two ago, there came an old maiden lady to live, who was very fond indeed of cats. She had three altogether, and she very wisely permitted them to roam about at the freedom of their own will. Two of her cats were ladies, the other was a fine red fellow, of the name of Joe.
“The gamekeepers said that Joe was a noted thief, and that he caught their birds and their leverets also, and that they would shoot him on sight. When the old lady heard this, she went straight to the keepers’ huts by the forest edge. Joe was trotting by her side, but as soon as they were within fifty yards of the cottages, Joe got up on his mistress’s shoulder. She was a strong old lady, and armed with a two-horse power umbrella in one hand, and a big book in the other.
“‘Do you see this cat?’ said Miss Simmonds to the head keeper.
“‘Can’t help seeing him, miss,’ he answered, ‘besides, we know him; he kills our birds and our leverets too, and we’ve seen him take a grilse out of the river!’
“‘Well, that is a pity; I just called to say that I was sorry, and that I will do my best to keep Joe at home, though this is difficult sometimes with a tom-cat, you know. But if he kills a bird or a leveret, you must let me know the amount of damage, and I’ll pay. But,’ she added, ‘you must not take the law into your own hands and shoot my cat.’
“‘Nonsense, miss!’ cried the keeper, pointing to a board on which was printed:
“Trespassers will be Prosecuted.”
“Dogs will be Shot.”
“‘That’s the way we serves dogs, miss, and it isn’t likely we’ll trouble about sparing a cat.’
“Then Miss Simmonds stuck her big umbrella ferule down in the turf, and took the big book from under her arm.
“‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Ahem!CornerversusChampneys. 2 Marsh, 584. A gamekeeper has no right to kill a dog for following game, even although the owner of the dog has received notice that trespassing dogs will be shot. In such a case as this, the shooter must pay the full price of the animal shot.’
“‘Didn’t know that before,’ said the keeper. ‘But, begging your pardon, miss, cats are not dogs.’
“‘The same law holds good, sir.’
“‘Cats can be trapped, miss.’
“‘Listen again,’ said Miss Simmonds. ‘TownsendversusWithan. In this case it was ruled that the defendant was answerable to the plaintiff for injuries sustained by his cat and dog in a trap, although he had no intention of injuring plaintiff, and meant only to catch foxes and vermin.’
“‘Poison, miss, is a quiet way of getting rid of cats. I’ll try that.’
“Once again, Miss Simmonds turned over the pages of her book, and proved to the satisfaction of even those surly keepers, that the putting down of poisoned flesh in a field laid the perpetrator under a penalty of 10 pounds.
“Well, although Miss Simmonds laid down the law to those men, she did not part from them in an unfriendly way, and something bright and yellow passed from her hand to that of the keeper.
“But in future Miss Simmonds restricted Joe’s liberty somewhat.
“Well, one day, Warlock and I were sitting by the burn (a small stream or rivulet is so called in Scotland) somewhat disconsolately, for we hadn’t had very much sport that day, only a few field mice and a mole, when I heard a cat mew softly within a few yards of me.
“I looked quickly round, and Warlock pricked up his ears, and prepared for instant combat.
“It was Joe.
“And very handsome he looked. I lost my heart to him at once.
“‘Shall I give him a fit?’ said Warlock.
“‘No, no,’ I cried hastily; ‘that is Joe.’
“‘I’m a little afraid of your dog, miss,’ said Joe. ‘Will he bite?’
“‘Oh, no, sir,’ I hastened to say.
“Then Joe advanced.
“All three soon got talking in quite a neighbourly kind of way, and the conversation naturally enough turned upon sport.
“‘We haven’t done much this forenoon,’ I said.
“‘Ah! then why don’t you catch trout?’
“Just at that moment fire seemed to flash from Joe’s yellow eyes. His nose was turned towards the stream; he was crouching low with his tail all a-quiver. Next minute he had left the bank and disappeared with a splash in the water.
“I was thunderstruck. So was Warlock. But Joe crept up the bank again almost directly, with a beautiful crimson-dotted yellow trout in his mouth.
“This he placed at my feet as a love-offering. Then he shook himself once or twice, and seemed quite pleased to see me enjoy the trout, the head and tail of which I gave to Warlock.
“‘Delightful, isn’t it?’ he said.
“‘Delicious!’ I replied.
“‘I’ve been a fisherman for over five years. You see, my late master had always been a disciple of Walton’s, and when only a kitten I used to sit and sing beside him, when packing his luncheon for the river’s side. I jumped up when he took down rod and basket, and would trot off with him all the way to the river. How eagerly I used to watch the skimming fly, and my master can make a lovely cast, and I couldn’t help being all of a tremble, and squaring my mouth, and emitting little screams of delight, when a fish rose to nibble; then when one was caught and thrown on the bank, nothing could prevent my jumping on it and killing it with blows of my paw. I did not put a tooth in it because master always fed me well, and I knew there was luncheon in the basket for me as well as for him.
“‘But I soon learned to catch fish myself, and now I not only spring on them as you saw me do just now, but where the stream is shallow, I fish as I have seen schoolboys do; for lying down on the bank I stretch my paw far in under it, and very often hand out a trout.’
“‘How clever!’ I said.
“‘It is wonderful!’ said Warlock.
“‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘you can do the same.’
“‘Can I?’ asked Warlock.
“‘No,’ said Joe smiling. ‘You’re only a dog, you know, but you can sit on a hillock, and watch and warn us if you see any fiend-boys coming along with catapults.’
“So, as Joe’s late master had been a disciple of Walton’s, I became a disciple of Joe’s. I think, Shireen, that I have proved a very apt pupil, though not quite as good yet as Joe. For Joe takes to the water like an Irish spaniel, and he told me that he often caught eels and also water rats.
“My fishing lessons have been an advantage to me and to Warlock too, because previously I used to be rather afraid of the water, and more than once when Warlock and I were out hunting, and he swam over a stream, I had to go miles up or down till I found a bridge. But now I leap in just as Warlock does, and swim to the other side.”
Shireen got up and stretched herself now.
“I’ll go on with my story another night,” she said.
Then she jumped upon Colonel Clarkson’s knee.
“How fond that cat seems to be of you,” said Ben.
“Ah! yes, poor Shireen! She dearly loves both me and my wife. As for Lizzie and Tom, well, she adores them. But Tom here is such a good lad, and never pulls her about, for I have told him that pussy is very old, and, heigho! I daresay we’ll miss her some of these days.”
“But we can lift Tabby, can’t we, uncle?” said Lizzie.
“Well, I do think Tabby rather likes being teased just a very little, and I’m sure she would stand from you, Lizzie, treatment she would soon resent if Uncle Ben or I were going to resort to it.”
“Getting late,” said Uncle Ben, starting up. “But,” he added, “somehow when the wind roars as it does to-night, and takes my thoughts away back to the stormy ocean, I cannot help talking.”
“Won’t Cockie get wet?” said Mrs Clarkson. “Hadn’t you better leave him here to-night?”
“Bless your innocence, my dear Mrs Clarkson, the bird would break his heart.”
“Coakie wants to go home!” cried the cockatoo.
It will be observed that the bird called himselfCoakie, not Cockie.
But Ben produced a big red handkerchief, and simply tied Cockie up as if he had been a bundle of collars going to the wash.
He placed the bundle under his arm, bade everybody good-night, then walked boldly forth into darkness and storm.
Chapter Thirteen.“Away, Lifeboat’s Crew!”The house where the Clarksons dwelt, with the two dear little orphans Lizzie and Tom, and to which Uncle Ben so often found his way, was a fine old place. It stood high on a great green brae, not far from the forest and sea, and had been at one time a real castle, for our friends only occupied the more modern portion of it. All the rest was in ruins, or nearly so.It was within sound of the roar of a cataract, which could be heard ever and ay in drowsy monotony, except on stormy nights, when the wild wind, sweeping through the tall dark pine trees that grew on a beetling cliff top behind the ruin, quite drowned even the voice of the linn.It was a rare old house and ruin for cats and children to play about; for there was not only quite a jungle of cover for birds of every sort, but the ivy itself that covered some of the sturdy grey walls gave berth and bield to more than one brown owl.It was perhaps the noise made by the owls that gave rise to the notion, ripe enough among the peasantry, that the old Castle was haunted.Lizzie and her brother both believed in this ghost. They made themselves believe, in fact, because it was romantic so to do.There were fine old-fashioned walled-in gardens and lawns to play in besides, so that on the whole it was a kind of ideal place.There was one peculiarity about the lawn that I should tell you of. The Colonel would not have it kept closely shaven, he loved to see the daisies growing thereon, and many a pink, crimson, or yellow nodding wild flower as well.So all the summer long it was beautiful, and even in autumn too.Lizzie and Tom were such gentle children, that none of the creatures of nature which visited the lawn, seemed to be one whit afraid of them. In fact, they—the children—were part and parcel of all that was beautiful in nature around them.The mavises sang to them nearly all the year through, sometimes even in snow time. So did cock-robin, because he was always fed, even in summer. Lizzie and Tom knew where his nest was in a bank of wild roses, and robin appeared rather pleased than otherwise to have them come quietly round and take a peep at his yellow-throated gaping gorblings of youngsters.“It takes me all my time,” cock-robin told Lizzie, “and all my wife’s time too, to feed them. Oh, they do eat and eat and eat to be sure. It is just stuff, stuff, stuff all day long; one beetle down the other come on, so that I haven’t time to sing a song to you. But wait till winter comes, and the youngsters are up and away, and won’t I just sing!”There was a saucy rascal of a blackbird that used to run about on the lawn gathering food, quite close to the children. When Shireen, Tabby, and the rest were there the blackbird used to come even closer, in order that he might nod his head and scold the cats.But Dick would cry “Eh? Eh? What d’ye say? What is it? You r-r-rascal!” and sometimes even fly down to offer him battle.There was no song more sweet in the summer evenings however, than blackie’s.The owl kept his song till midnight, and a very dreary one it was!But strangely enough, some may think it, yet it is nevertheless most true, wild pigeons built their nests in the pine trees, close to the wall in which the owls had theirs. These pigeons knew, though gamekeepers don’t, that these owls lived on young rats and mice and not upon birds.Squirrels used to run about the lawn with their long brown beautiful tails behind them, early in the morning; and they built in trees also.Then there was a white-breasted weasel, that would often come quite close up to Lizzie and Tom, and stand on one end to look at what they were doing.On this particular year, autumn lingered long on the hills and forests and fields all around the children’s beautiful home. It was, Uncle Ben said, a real Indian summer, so soft and warm and mellow, that neither he nor the Colonel ever cared to be much indoors.“Well,” said Warlock, one afternoon out on the Colonel’s lawn, while Lizzie and Tom sat at some distance making a garland of gowans for the dogs’ necks, and the old sailor and soldier sat in their straw chairs, peacefully smoking and yarning—“Well, Shireen, although I have never been to sea myself, considering that the land and the lovely hills and woods are good enough for me, I dearly like to hear about it, so just heave round with your yarn, as Uncle Ben yonder says.”“Yes, with pleasure,” said Shireen. “Let me see though, where did I leave off?”“Why you left yourself sitting on the bulwark of the oldVenom, catching flying fish.”Oh, yes, so I did, Warlock. My memory is just getting a little fickle now, while yours is supple and green. Well, the voyage south was continued, slowly though, because we kept in towards the green-wooded coast, you know, in order to hunt for slave-ships. And several times Tom Brandy and I had to be blown out of the gun with a fuze before the men could load it. I always knew what was going to happen when this took place, and ran aft right speedily and got down below to my master’s bed; because do what I might, I could never reconcile myself to the noise of those terrible guns.Master I could see, much to my joy, was getting better and stronger every day. But he often spoke to me about my mistress Beebee, and always said that he would, at all risks, prevent her from being sold to the Shah.One day he went so far as to say, “Dear pussy Shireen, your mistress is much too good and too beautiful for a fellow like the Shah. Let him be content with the slaves he has. He is only a savage himself, at the best, and rather than he should have your sweet mistress, I will go back to Persia and carry her away.”My life on board theVenomwas now a most happy and pleasant one; but often and often, Warlock, I dreamt that I was back again in the land of the lion and the sun, in beautiful Persia, and that I was sitting as of old in the turret balcony, with my darling mistress. Then I would awake and find myself far away on the dark blue sea.No, I should not say dark blue sea, because the Indian Ocean is more lovely far than turquoisine.Tom Brandy and I would sit for hours on the bulwarks, which I used to call a fence, looking at the sea. The flying fish knew far better than to come on board the vessel during the day, but there always was something or other to be seen in the ocean. At times, especially on calm days, it would be a shoal of silvery whitebait. And such a shoal! Oh, Tabby, it would have made your mouth water to look upon it. We could see first far ahead of us, a dark patch upon the bright blue water, and when we came nearer, that part of the sea would be all a-quiver, as if it were raining hard there and nowhere else. But soon the shoal opened out in all its beauty of silvery life and loveliness. I’m not a post, only a Persian cat, else I could describe it better.“Oh, rats!” cried Warlock, “never mind the poetry.”Another sight we used to see would be a shoal of dolphins.“Chasing the whitebait, I suppose?” This from Warlock.“I didn’t say so, Warlock.”But very prettily they used to come along on the top of the water. They would be so far away at first that they looked like tiny black ticks on the horizon, but soon they were near enough to us, and we saw that they were monsters. Oh, a hundred times as large as you, Warlock, or all of us put together. They came up head first, and went down head first, just skylarking and playing and skipping like lambs on the leas. And the water all around them was lashed into foam. Wasn’t I afraid, did you ask me, Vee-Vee? No, not a bit, because Tom told me they were as harmless as cows.But, my children, there were creatures in that deep sea of turquoisine that were very far indeed from being harmless. These were the sharks.There were always one or two down there that the doctor led. They used to know the doctor, and floated alongside the ship, while he threw down pieces of fat to them, and sometimes a ham bone.The doctor said those tigers of the ocean used to swallow whatever was thrown overboard, even if it were only an empty medicine bottle.Sometimes they looked very lovingly at the doctor, and this officer would tell me they were asking him to throw over a cat for them to swallow. They said they had never eaten cat, but felt sure that it must taste very nice indeed.But little did we think that one day we would be in danger of our lives from those awful monsters.Only it wasn’t by day, but by night, and a clear and beautiful night it was too, with the moon shining as brightly almost as it used to shine over the woods around my Persian home.Tom and I had been sitting on the bulwarks as usual, expecting a flying fish to come on board. But they could see us too distinctly, so they kept away.There was very little wind that night, just enough to fill the sails, and carry us along about five knots an hour.It was a few minutes past midnight, and the watch had been changed, and stillness reigned everywhere. I think I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming, for I started in fright when one bell was struck loudly and clearly.I started so that I missed my balance, and fell with a plash into the sea. Next moment Tom Brandy uttered a plaintive howl and dashed in after me. I am sure that the poor fellow had no idea of trying to save my life, he only wished to share my fate.I heard a shout just after Tom came down. For a man in the watch, hearing the plash in the water, immediately concluded that someone had fallen in, and raised the alarm.“Man overboard! Away, lifeboat’s crew!”The shout was taken up and repeated fore and aft, down below and on deck as well.Then something came rushing down into the sea from the stern of the ship, and fell into the water with a strange hollow ring.The officer of the watch had let go the lifebuoy, but so quickly that he had forgotten to light it. His neglect to do so probably saved our lives.The lifebuoy is made of two empty copper balls, with an arm of wood between. From this rises a short mast, on the top of which a beacon burns. Now had this been lit, Tom and I would have burned our paws when we scrambled up the little mast.I never knew I could swim till then, but I can assure you, Warlock, it didn’t take Tom Brandy and I long to reach that lifebuoy, and there we clung till the boat came.It was not long, perhaps, till the boat did arrive, but to me it seemed like a hundred years, for the sea all around us appeared to be alive with awful sharks. Tom told me afterwards my eyes must have multiplied their numbers, and that there were only just the doctor’s two tame ones.Well, Warlock, tame or not tame, they wanted to tear Tom and me to pieces, and were terribly disappointed when the men took us on board and the boat went rushing back to theVenomwith us rescued pussies.When the captain heard of what he called the gallant rescue, he ordered the mainbrace to be spliced, and so the men all had a glass of grog for saving our lives.But next day the seaman who had struck the bell which so startled me, informed the boatswain that he was positive both cats did not fall off the bulwarks, but that I only had missed my hold and tumbled into the sea. He looked quickly towards the bows he said, and for a second or two saw Tom Brandy there safe enough. Then he heard his cry, and saw him deliberately spring into the sea after me.The boatswain told all this to the men and also to the officers, and after that Tom became indeed a hero on board the ship. My master spoke of presenting him with a handsome collar of solid silver. The armourer said if my master Edgar would let him have the silver, he would very soon make it and engrave it also; he received a large silver spoon, and so heartily did he work, that in less than a week Tom was wearing his collar.But, children, continued Shireen thoughtfully, although Tom Brandy looked somewhat dignified in his silver collar, it is rather a risky ornament for a pussy to wear. For a cat friend of mine in the country being presented with a lovely morocco leather collar by his own mistress, who thought a great deal of him, disappeared soon after in the most mysterious way. A whole week passed by and poor Clyde didn’t appear. Then one day a boy rang the door bell, and asked to see Clyde’s mistress. He thought he had found the missing cat he said.“Where, my dear boy, where?” cried Mrs L—“Up in a tree, far down in the wood, ma’am.”“And why didn’t you bring him? I’ll go with you, and we must get him, and I will pay you well.”“Can you climb trees?” she added.“Like a squirrel,” he said boldly.The tree was soon found, and up swarmed the boy.“It is Clyde right enough!” he shouted down; “but she’s been and gone and hung herself.”“Oh, poor pussy! Is she dead?”By this time the lad was coming down the tree with pussy under his jacket.“Never a dead is she, ma’am, but awfully thin.”She was indeed thin, and a miserable time she must have spent. A branch of the tree had got caught in the collar, and there the poor cat was hung up by the neck, and but for the boy, who perhaps had been birds’-nesting, she would have been slowly starved to death.That’s the worst of a dandy collar. But nothing ever happened to Tom Brandy on board the ship.Well, in due course theVenomarrived safely in port, and was paid off. And I assure you, dear children, the day I parted from Tom Brandy I was very sorry indeed. But, you see, he wasn’t my master’s cat, and so couldn’t go with us.Indeed Captain Beecroft had taken a real fancy for Tom, and being like many sailors, just a little superstitious, he thought that if he parted with pussy, all his good luck would go also, so he determined to stick to him.Arrived on shore, we, that is my dear master and I, went to Yorkshire to live for a time with an aunt of his, about the only relative he had alive.Mrs Clifford was an exceedingly nice old lady, and very fond of cats, as every nice old lady is, you know, Warlock. She took quite a fancy to me at once, and I had the run of the house and gardens, and a fine old-fashioned place it was. There were several other cats here and dogs too, but we lived like a happy family just as we all do here.“Now, pussy Shireen,” said master to me one evening, “I don’t know what I shall do. I think more and more about your beautiful mistress that the Shah is going to claim, every day of my life; and I think, too, of the vow I made to protect her from the terrible fate that awaits her. But oh, pussy, I’m almost in a fix, for I must tell aunt about Beebee, and, very nice though she is, I do not know how she may take it; I am entirely dependent upon her, and what is more, I am her heir.”“But tell her I must, Shireen, even if she cuts me off with a shilling. I still have my sword, you know, pussy.”I rubbed my head against his hand, and sang loud and long.He understood me, and took me up in his arms and kissed me on the head.“Yes, Shireen,” he said, “I still have you, and we shall never part, I do assure you, unless I am slain in battle, and even then you will be by my side.”Then he started to his feet.“Come, Shireen,” he said bravely, “the more I think about it, the worse it will be. I will go and seek my aunt now in her own room, and tell her all about it.”I trotted along the passage with him, and soon we came to Mrs Clifford’s door.“Come in,” she cried. “Come in, Edgar,” for she knew it was his knock.“Sit down, my child, by my chair.”So Edgar took a low stool by her knee just as he used to do when a boy, and the kindly white-haired lady passed her hand through his hair.“Just like old times, isn’t it, Edgar?”“Yes, auntie; but I have come to speak to you about Shireen.”“About your beautiful pussy?”“Yes. Look, auntie.”Edgar, as he spoke, took me up and exposed my gum.“Do you see that brilliant red flashing little spot, aunt?”“Yes, my dear boy. Let me get my glasses. Why, I declare, Edgar, it is a brilliant, a ruby, and though small, it looks like a priceless gem.”“And so it is; and the person who had it put there is a still more priceless gem to me.”“I don’t understand you, Edgar; you always were a strange child.”“Well, shall I tell you the story of the ruby?”Mrs Clifford folded her mittened hands in her lap, and looked, or tried to look resigned.“I think,” she said, “I know what is coming. You have been out in Persia, and you have fallen in love with some designing minx of a Persian girl, and she gave you that Persian cat—and—and—and—” here the old lady began to tap with her foot against the footstool—“oh, that my brother’s boy should have fallen in love with a blackamoor!”Edgar at this moment pulled out a case from his pocket, and opening it by means of touching a spring, held out before his auntie’s astonished gaze a charmingly executed miniature portrait of my sweet mistress.“Is that a blackamoor, auntie?” he said.“This lovely child! Is this—” she spoke no more for a time.But my master knew he had gained a point, so he commenced to tell Beebee’s story and mine, from the very beginning to the end, and I assure you, children, when he finished, the tears were silently falling down the furrowed cheeks of the dear white-haired lady.“Oh, the inhuman monster of a father of the dear girl?” she said, as if speaking to herself.Then she turned to my master and held out her hand. “Dear boy,” she said, “I am your friend, and if ever Beebee comes to this country, I will try to be a friend and a mother to her.”Then Edgar got up. He kissed the lady’s white hair, then walked straight away out of the room, struggling hard to restrain the tears that filled his eyes. They were tears of joy though.
The house where the Clarksons dwelt, with the two dear little orphans Lizzie and Tom, and to which Uncle Ben so often found his way, was a fine old place. It stood high on a great green brae, not far from the forest and sea, and had been at one time a real castle, for our friends only occupied the more modern portion of it. All the rest was in ruins, or nearly so.
It was within sound of the roar of a cataract, which could be heard ever and ay in drowsy monotony, except on stormy nights, when the wild wind, sweeping through the tall dark pine trees that grew on a beetling cliff top behind the ruin, quite drowned even the voice of the linn.
It was a rare old house and ruin for cats and children to play about; for there was not only quite a jungle of cover for birds of every sort, but the ivy itself that covered some of the sturdy grey walls gave berth and bield to more than one brown owl.
It was perhaps the noise made by the owls that gave rise to the notion, ripe enough among the peasantry, that the old Castle was haunted.
Lizzie and her brother both believed in this ghost. They made themselves believe, in fact, because it was romantic so to do.
There were fine old-fashioned walled-in gardens and lawns to play in besides, so that on the whole it was a kind of ideal place.
There was one peculiarity about the lawn that I should tell you of. The Colonel would not have it kept closely shaven, he loved to see the daisies growing thereon, and many a pink, crimson, or yellow nodding wild flower as well.
So all the summer long it was beautiful, and even in autumn too.
Lizzie and Tom were such gentle children, that none of the creatures of nature which visited the lawn, seemed to be one whit afraid of them. In fact, they—the children—were part and parcel of all that was beautiful in nature around them.
The mavises sang to them nearly all the year through, sometimes even in snow time. So did cock-robin, because he was always fed, even in summer. Lizzie and Tom knew where his nest was in a bank of wild roses, and robin appeared rather pleased than otherwise to have them come quietly round and take a peep at his yellow-throated gaping gorblings of youngsters.
“It takes me all my time,” cock-robin told Lizzie, “and all my wife’s time too, to feed them. Oh, they do eat and eat and eat to be sure. It is just stuff, stuff, stuff all day long; one beetle down the other come on, so that I haven’t time to sing a song to you. But wait till winter comes, and the youngsters are up and away, and won’t I just sing!”
There was a saucy rascal of a blackbird that used to run about on the lawn gathering food, quite close to the children. When Shireen, Tabby, and the rest were there the blackbird used to come even closer, in order that he might nod his head and scold the cats.
But Dick would cry “Eh? Eh? What d’ye say? What is it? You r-r-rascal!” and sometimes even fly down to offer him battle.
There was no song more sweet in the summer evenings however, than blackie’s.
The owl kept his song till midnight, and a very dreary one it was!
But strangely enough, some may think it, yet it is nevertheless most true, wild pigeons built their nests in the pine trees, close to the wall in which the owls had theirs. These pigeons knew, though gamekeepers don’t, that these owls lived on young rats and mice and not upon birds.
Squirrels used to run about the lawn with their long brown beautiful tails behind them, early in the morning; and they built in trees also.
Then there was a white-breasted weasel, that would often come quite close up to Lizzie and Tom, and stand on one end to look at what they were doing.
On this particular year, autumn lingered long on the hills and forests and fields all around the children’s beautiful home. It was, Uncle Ben said, a real Indian summer, so soft and warm and mellow, that neither he nor the Colonel ever cared to be much indoors.
“Well,” said Warlock, one afternoon out on the Colonel’s lawn, while Lizzie and Tom sat at some distance making a garland of gowans for the dogs’ necks, and the old sailor and soldier sat in their straw chairs, peacefully smoking and yarning—“Well, Shireen, although I have never been to sea myself, considering that the land and the lovely hills and woods are good enough for me, I dearly like to hear about it, so just heave round with your yarn, as Uncle Ben yonder says.”
“Yes, with pleasure,” said Shireen. “Let me see though, where did I leave off?”
“Why you left yourself sitting on the bulwark of the oldVenom, catching flying fish.”
Oh, yes, so I did, Warlock. My memory is just getting a little fickle now, while yours is supple and green. Well, the voyage south was continued, slowly though, because we kept in towards the green-wooded coast, you know, in order to hunt for slave-ships. And several times Tom Brandy and I had to be blown out of the gun with a fuze before the men could load it. I always knew what was going to happen when this took place, and ran aft right speedily and got down below to my master’s bed; because do what I might, I could never reconcile myself to the noise of those terrible guns.
Master I could see, much to my joy, was getting better and stronger every day. But he often spoke to me about my mistress Beebee, and always said that he would, at all risks, prevent her from being sold to the Shah.
One day he went so far as to say, “Dear pussy Shireen, your mistress is much too good and too beautiful for a fellow like the Shah. Let him be content with the slaves he has. He is only a savage himself, at the best, and rather than he should have your sweet mistress, I will go back to Persia and carry her away.”
My life on board theVenomwas now a most happy and pleasant one; but often and often, Warlock, I dreamt that I was back again in the land of the lion and the sun, in beautiful Persia, and that I was sitting as of old in the turret balcony, with my darling mistress. Then I would awake and find myself far away on the dark blue sea.
No, I should not say dark blue sea, because the Indian Ocean is more lovely far than turquoisine.
Tom Brandy and I would sit for hours on the bulwarks, which I used to call a fence, looking at the sea. The flying fish knew far better than to come on board the vessel during the day, but there always was something or other to be seen in the ocean. At times, especially on calm days, it would be a shoal of silvery whitebait. And such a shoal! Oh, Tabby, it would have made your mouth water to look upon it. We could see first far ahead of us, a dark patch upon the bright blue water, and when we came nearer, that part of the sea would be all a-quiver, as if it were raining hard there and nowhere else. But soon the shoal opened out in all its beauty of silvery life and loveliness. I’m not a post, only a Persian cat, else I could describe it better.
“Oh, rats!” cried Warlock, “never mind the poetry.”
Another sight we used to see would be a shoal of dolphins.
“Chasing the whitebait, I suppose?” This from Warlock.
“I didn’t say so, Warlock.”
But very prettily they used to come along on the top of the water. They would be so far away at first that they looked like tiny black ticks on the horizon, but soon they were near enough to us, and we saw that they were monsters. Oh, a hundred times as large as you, Warlock, or all of us put together. They came up head first, and went down head first, just skylarking and playing and skipping like lambs on the leas. And the water all around them was lashed into foam. Wasn’t I afraid, did you ask me, Vee-Vee? No, not a bit, because Tom told me they were as harmless as cows.
But, my children, there were creatures in that deep sea of turquoisine that were very far indeed from being harmless. These were the sharks.
There were always one or two down there that the doctor led. They used to know the doctor, and floated alongside the ship, while he threw down pieces of fat to them, and sometimes a ham bone.
The doctor said those tigers of the ocean used to swallow whatever was thrown overboard, even if it were only an empty medicine bottle.
Sometimes they looked very lovingly at the doctor, and this officer would tell me they were asking him to throw over a cat for them to swallow. They said they had never eaten cat, but felt sure that it must taste very nice indeed.
But little did we think that one day we would be in danger of our lives from those awful monsters.
Only it wasn’t by day, but by night, and a clear and beautiful night it was too, with the moon shining as brightly almost as it used to shine over the woods around my Persian home.
Tom and I had been sitting on the bulwarks as usual, expecting a flying fish to come on board. But they could see us too distinctly, so they kept away.
There was very little wind that night, just enough to fill the sails, and carry us along about five knots an hour.
It was a few minutes past midnight, and the watch had been changed, and stillness reigned everywhere. I think I must have fallen asleep and been dreaming, for I started in fright when one bell was struck loudly and clearly.
I started so that I missed my balance, and fell with a plash into the sea. Next moment Tom Brandy uttered a plaintive howl and dashed in after me. I am sure that the poor fellow had no idea of trying to save my life, he only wished to share my fate.
I heard a shout just after Tom came down. For a man in the watch, hearing the plash in the water, immediately concluded that someone had fallen in, and raised the alarm.
“Man overboard! Away, lifeboat’s crew!”
The shout was taken up and repeated fore and aft, down below and on deck as well.
Then something came rushing down into the sea from the stern of the ship, and fell into the water with a strange hollow ring.
The officer of the watch had let go the lifebuoy, but so quickly that he had forgotten to light it. His neglect to do so probably saved our lives.
The lifebuoy is made of two empty copper balls, with an arm of wood between. From this rises a short mast, on the top of which a beacon burns. Now had this been lit, Tom and I would have burned our paws when we scrambled up the little mast.
I never knew I could swim till then, but I can assure you, Warlock, it didn’t take Tom Brandy and I long to reach that lifebuoy, and there we clung till the boat came.
It was not long, perhaps, till the boat did arrive, but to me it seemed like a hundred years, for the sea all around us appeared to be alive with awful sharks. Tom told me afterwards my eyes must have multiplied their numbers, and that there were only just the doctor’s two tame ones.
Well, Warlock, tame or not tame, they wanted to tear Tom and me to pieces, and were terribly disappointed when the men took us on board and the boat went rushing back to theVenomwith us rescued pussies.
When the captain heard of what he called the gallant rescue, he ordered the mainbrace to be spliced, and so the men all had a glass of grog for saving our lives.
But next day the seaman who had struck the bell which so startled me, informed the boatswain that he was positive both cats did not fall off the bulwarks, but that I only had missed my hold and tumbled into the sea. He looked quickly towards the bows he said, and for a second or two saw Tom Brandy there safe enough. Then he heard his cry, and saw him deliberately spring into the sea after me.
The boatswain told all this to the men and also to the officers, and after that Tom became indeed a hero on board the ship. My master spoke of presenting him with a handsome collar of solid silver. The armourer said if my master Edgar would let him have the silver, he would very soon make it and engrave it also; he received a large silver spoon, and so heartily did he work, that in less than a week Tom was wearing his collar.
But, children, continued Shireen thoughtfully, although Tom Brandy looked somewhat dignified in his silver collar, it is rather a risky ornament for a pussy to wear. For a cat friend of mine in the country being presented with a lovely morocco leather collar by his own mistress, who thought a great deal of him, disappeared soon after in the most mysterious way. A whole week passed by and poor Clyde didn’t appear. Then one day a boy rang the door bell, and asked to see Clyde’s mistress. He thought he had found the missing cat he said.
“Where, my dear boy, where?” cried Mrs L—
“Up in a tree, far down in the wood, ma’am.”
“And why didn’t you bring him? I’ll go with you, and we must get him, and I will pay you well.”
“Can you climb trees?” she added.
“Like a squirrel,” he said boldly.
The tree was soon found, and up swarmed the boy.
“It is Clyde right enough!” he shouted down; “but she’s been and gone and hung herself.”
“Oh, poor pussy! Is she dead?”
By this time the lad was coming down the tree with pussy under his jacket.
“Never a dead is she, ma’am, but awfully thin.”
She was indeed thin, and a miserable time she must have spent. A branch of the tree had got caught in the collar, and there the poor cat was hung up by the neck, and but for the boy, who perhaps had been birds’-nesting, she would have been slowly starved to death.
That’s the worst of a dandy collar. But nothing ever happened to Tom Brandy on board the ship.
Well, in due course theVenomarrived safely in port, and was paid off. And I assure you, dear children, the day I parted from Tom Brandy I was very sorry indeed. But, you see, he wasn’t my master’s cat, and so couldn’t go with us.
Indeed Captain Beecroft had taken a real fancy for Tom, and being like many sailors, just a little superstitious, he thought that if he parted with pussy, all his good luck would go also, so he determined to stick to him.
Arrived on shore, we, that is my dear master and I, went to Yorkshire to live for a time with an aunt of his, about the only relative he had alive.
Mrs Clifford was an exceedingly nice old lady, and very fond of cats, as every nice old lady is, you know, Warlock. She took quite a fancy to me at once, and I had the run of the house and gardens, and a fine old-fashioned place it was. There were several other cats here and dogs too, but we lived like a happy family just as we all do here.
“Now, pussy Shireen,” said master to me one evening, “I don’t know what I shall do. I think more and more about your beautiful mistress that the Shah is going to claim, every day of my life; and I think, too, of the vow I made to protect her from the terrible fate that awaits her. But oh, pussy, I’m almost in a fix, for I must tell aunt about Beebee, and, very nice though she is, I do not know how she may take it; I am entirely dependent upon her, and what is more, I am her heir.”
“But tell her I must, Shireen, even if she cuts me off with a shilling. I still have my sword, you know, pussy.”
I rubbed my head against his hand, and sang loud and long.
He understood me, and took me up in his arms and kissed me on the head.
“Yes, Shireen,” he said, “I still have you, and we shall never part, I do assure you, unless I am slain in battle, and even then you will be by my side.”
Then he started to his feet.
“Come, Shireen,” he said bravely, “the more I think about it, the worse it will be. I will go and seek my aunt now in her own room, and tell her all about it.”
I trotted along the passage with him, and soon we came to Mrs Clifford’s door.
“Come in,” she cried. “Come in, Edgar,” for she knew it was his knock.
“Sit down, my child, by my chair.”
So Edgar took a low stool by her knee just as he used to do when a boy, and the kindly white-haired lady passed her hand through his hair.
“Just like old times, isn’t it, Edgar?”
“Yes, auntie; but I have come to speak to you about Shireen.”
“About your beautiful pussy?”
“Yes. Look, auntie.”
Edgar, as he spoke, took me up and exposed my gum.
“Do you see that brilliant red flashing little spot, aunt?”
“Yes, my dear boy. Let me get my glasses. Why, I declare, Edgar, it is a brilliant, a ruby, and though small, it looks like a priceless gem.”
“And so it is; and the person who had it put there is a still more priceless gem to me.”
“I don’t understand you, Edgar; you always were a strange child.”
“Well, shall I tell you the story of the ruby?”
Mrs Clifford folded her mittened hands in her lap, and looked, or tried to look resigned.
“I think,” she said, “I know what is coming. You have been out in Persia, and you have fallen in love with some designing minx of a Persian girl, and she gave you that Persian cat—and—and—and—” here the old lady began to tap with her foot against the footstool—“oh, that my brother’s boy should have fallen in love with a blackamoor!”
Edgar at this moment pulled out a case from his pocket, and opening it by means of touching a spring, held out before his auntie’s astonished gaze a charmingly executed miniature portrait of my sweet mistress.
“Is that a blackamoor, auntie?” he said.
“This lovely child! Is this—” she spoke no more for a time.
But my master knew he had gained a point, so he commenced to tell Beebee’s story and mine, from the very beginning to the end, and I assure you, children, when he finished, the tears were silently falling down the furrowed cheeks of the dear white-haired lady.
“Oh, the inhuman monster of a father of the dear girl?” she said, as if speaking to herself.
Then she turned to my master and held out her hand. “Dear boy,” she said, “I am your friend, and if ever Beebee comes to this country, I will try to be a friend and a mother to her.”
Then Edgar got up. He kissed the lady’s white hair, then walked straight away out of the room, struggling hard to restrain the tears that filled his eyes. They were tears of joy though.