Chapter Twenty Nine.The Count can’t find Words.That afternoon, after what had proved to be a very friendly, pleasant breakfast, through which nothing could have been more courteous and hospitable than the conduct of the Count and his son towards those with whom they had become so strangely intimate, the skipper hurried the end of the meal by suggesting that he should once more sound the well.They went on deck at once, to find both pumps were being kept energetically going, the half-dozen men from the schooner taking their turns in the heartiest way, a general fraternisation having taken place, while on seeing the result of the skipper’s examination, the delight of the Count and his son seemed unbounded.“There you are, then, sir,” said the skipper, in answer to a look from the doctor, “and now we will leave you to it.”“And I suppose,” said Uncle Paul, “that you will have no hesitation, sir, in following Captain Chubb’s advice?”“And making for the mouth of some river,” said the Count, glancing at his son, “to get the brig ashore, so as to repair her?”“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul. “You must see that there is nothing else that you can do.”“Nothing else that I can do,” said the Count slowly, and Rodd gave him a wondering glance, for the skipper’s remarks about the brig’s owner being out of his mind came to his memory. “You intend to cruise about here, then, Dr Robson?”“Here or anywhere,” was the reply. “Probably here until I seem to have exhausted the natural history specimens that I can collect.”“Yes,” said the Count, gazing fixedly at his son, “until you have exhausted the natural history specimens that you can collect.”He spoke in a curious dreamy way as if he were thinking hard, while Rodd coloured a little as he saw that the young Frenchman was gazing at him fixedly, for once more he could not help thinking of the skipper’s words.“Do you know of a place that would be likely, doctor?” said the Count. “I mean a river that we could sail up into shallow water, if we were so fortunate as to reach one without sinking first.”“Not I,” said the doctor, “but my captain here has cruised along this coast in by-gone days, and he tells me that it would be easy enough to find inlet after inlet, and deltas with streams, running up through the muddy mangrove swamps.”“But then we might never reach the shore,” said the Count slowly—“not with the brig—in spite of your kindly, I may say brotherly aid.”Rodd felt that the Count’s son was still gazing at him searchingly, but he did not turn his head, for the doctor began speaking at once.“Really, my dear sir,” he said almost curtly, “national dislike seems to exist to a great extent amongst your countrymen. Do you really think we English should be such barbarians as to sail away and leave a crippled ship to its fate?”“No, no, no, doctor!” cried the Count warmly. “But how could I be so grasping as to ask you, full of your scientific pursuits as you are, to stand by us till we can reach the shore in safety?”“You would not ask it, sir,” said the doctor warmly. “There would be no need. Of course my schooner will stand by you, ready to give you help until your brig is once more fit for sea.”“Forgive me, doctor!” cried the Count eagerly.“There is nothing to forgive, sir,” replied the doctor, “only I think I may say that saving in times of war there is no such thing as nationality amongst those who go to sea. My experience is that they are always brethren in times of distress.”The Count held out his hand, which was warmly grasped, while the young French ex-prisoner looked at Rodd with eyes that seemed to speak volumes.At this moment the skipper gave a grunt of satisfaction and broke in.“There’s plenty of choice, gentlemen,” he said. “I’d venture to say I could find you the mouths of a dozen sluggish rivers up which you could go with the tide as far as you liked, and then moor our vessels to the forest trees, easily finding places close in shore where the tide as it went out would leave the brig here softly in the mud ready for careening over in a cradle where she wouldn’t strain or open a single seam; and the doctor here being willing, I’ll promise to take the job in hand and make the brig’s bottom as sound as ever it was, even if we have to strip off a little copper from along the top streak, where it isn’t so much wanted, so as to put new plates where the damaged ones have been.”“I shall be only too glad, Count,” said the doctor; “and now I think we will get back to the schooner, and Captain Chubb here will shape his course somewhere to the south-east, till within the next few days we near the coast, when he will select a suitable place for his purpose.”“I cannot find words,” said the Count, in a husky voice.“Don’t try,” said the doctor.“No, but—er,”—continued the Count, in rather a hesitating tone, “you do mean to keep cruising about here—and farther south or west?”“Don’t you give that another thought,” said the doctor frankly. “The schooner is my own, and almost any portion of the ocean or the shore offers attractions to me and my nephew. We can find interest anywhere. I only hope that you will not find our society dull.”The Count made a gesture, and then, after a word or two to the skipper, the latter gave his men orders, and they took their places in the boat.It was then that the Count’s son, who had been very silent for some time, looking at Rodd as if longing to speak, suddenly turned and whispered something to his father, who replied with a comprehensive gesture, and the lad immediately approached the doctor.“It will be hours yet, sir, before it is dark, and I have so much I should like to say to your nephew. Can he not stay till evening, and then our boat shall bring him to your vessel? You will not,” he continued playfully, turning to Rodd, “be afraid of going down?”“My nephew is at liberty to do as he pleases,” replied the doctor frankly. “What do you say, Rodd?”“Oh, I want to stay, uncle. I should like to hear all about the escape.”A few minutes later the two lads were leaning together over the rail watching the departing boat, and chatting together as if they were old schoolfellows who had met again after a long separation, Rodd delighted with his companion, and disposed to feel disappointed in himself lest the refined, polished young officer—one, evidently, of thehaute noblesse—should look down upon him as a rough, rather boorish young Englishman.Somehow that evening, with its rapid change from glowing sunset light to purple violet darkness, seemed wonderfully quick in coming, and as the brig’s well-manned boat grazed against the schooner’s stern and Rodd turned in climbing up the side to hang by his left hand and extend his right, the feeling of inferiority melted away in the young Frenchman’s warm grasp, as the latter said—“I suppose we shall be sailing very slowly till we reach the shore, and I want to see more of you. I shall come and fetch you first thing in the morning. Don’t say anything; you must come.Au revoir!”The brig’s boat pushed off as soon as Rodd had swung himself on deck, and as it glided away into the soft darkness with the regularly handled oars dipping up from the surface of the sea what seemed to be like so much lambent liquid gold, suggesting to Rodd as he gazed after his new friend that the stars might have been melting all day in the torrid sun, and that this was their pale golden light floating upon the sea, a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
That afternoon, after what had proved to be a very friendly, pleasant breakfast, through which nothing could have been more courteous and hospitable than the conduct of the Count and his son towards those with whom they had become so strangely intimate, the skipper hurried the end of the meal by suggesting that he should once more sound the well.
They went on deck at once, to find both pumps were being kept energetically going, the half-dozen men from the schooner taking their turns in the heartiest way, a general fraternisation having taken place, while on seeing the result of the skipper’s examination, the delight of the Count and his son seemed unbounded.
“There you are, then, sir,” said the skipper, in answer to a look from the doctor, “and now we will leave you to it.”
“And I suppose,” said Uncle Paul, “that you will have no hesitation, sir, in following Captain Chubb’s advice?”
“And making for the mouth of some river,” said the Count, glancing at his son, “to get the brig ashore, so as to repair her?”
“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul. “You must see that there is nothing else that you can do.”
“Nothing else that I can do,” said the Count slowly, and Rodd gave him a wondering glance, for the skipper’s remarks about the brig’s owner being out of his mind came to his memory. “You intend to cruise about here, then, Dr Robson?”
“Here or anywhere,” was the reply. “Probably here until I seem to have exhausted the natural history specimens that I can collect.”
“Yes,” said the Count, gazing fixedly at his son, “until you have exhausted the natural history specimens that you can collect.”
He spoke in a curious dreamy way as if he were thinking hard, while Rodd coloured a little as he saw that the young Frenchman was gazing at him fixedly, for once more he could not help thinking of the skipper’s words.
“Do you know of a place that would be likely, doctor?” said the Count. “I mean a river that we could sail up into shallow water, if we were so fortunate as to reach one without sinking first.”
“Not I,” said the doctor, “but my captain here has cruised along this coast in by-gone days, and he tells me that it would be easy enough to find inlet after inlet, and deltas with streams, running up through the muddy mangrove swamps.”
“But then we might never reach the shore,” said the Count slowly—“not with the brig—in spite of your kindly, I may say brotherly aid.”
Rodd felt that the Count’s son was still gazing at him searchingly, but he did not turn his head, for the doctor began speaking at once.
“Really, my dear sir,” he said almost curtly, “national dislike seems to exist to a great extent amongst your countrymen. Do you really think we English should be such barbarians as to sail away and leave a crippled ship to its fate?”
“No, no, no, doctor!” cried the Count warmly. “But how could I be so grasping as to ask you, full of your scientific pursuits as you are, to stand by us till we can reach the shore in safety?”
“You would not ask it, sir,” said the doctor warmly. “There would be no need. Of course my schooner will stand by you, ready to give you help until your brig is once more fit for sea.”
“Forgive me, doctor!” cried the Count eagerly.
“There is nothing to forgive, sir,” replied the doctor, “only I think I may say that saving in times of war there is no such thing as nationality amongst those who go to sea. My experience is that they are always brethren in times of distress.”
The Count held out his hand, which was warmly grasped, while the young French ex-prisoner looked at Rodd with eyes that seemed to speak volumes.
At this moment the skipper gave a grunt of satisfaction and broke in.
“There’s plenty of choice, gentlemen,” he said. “I’d venture to say I could find you the mouths of a dozen sluggish rivers up which you could go with the tide as far as you liked, and then moor our vessels to the forest trees, easily finding places close in shore where the tide as it went out would leave the brig here softly in the mud ready for careening over in a cradle where she wouldn’t strain or open a single seam; and the doctor here being willing, I’ll promise to take the job in hand and make the brig’s bottom as sound as ever it was, even if we have to strip off a little copper from along the top streak, where it isn’t so much wanted, so as to put new plates where the damaged ones have been.”
“I shall be only too glad, Count,” said the doctor; “and now I think we will get back to the schooner, and Captain Chubb here will shape his course somewhere to the south-east, till within the next few days we near the coast, when he will select a suitable place for his purpose.”
“I cannot find words,” said the Count, in a husky voice.
“Don’t try,” said the doctor.
“No, but—er,”—continued the Count, in rather a hesitating tone, “you do mean to keep cruising about here—and farther south or west?”
“Don’t you give that another thought,” said the doctor frankly. “The schooner is my own, and almost any portion of the ocean or the shore offers attractions to me and my nephew. We can find interest anywhere. I only hope that you will not find our society dull.”
The Count made a gesture, and then, after a word or two to the skipper, the latter gave his men orders, and they took their places in the boat.
It was then that the Count’s son, who had been very silent for some time, looking at Rodd as if longing to speak, suddenly turned and whispered something to his father, who replied with a comprehensive gesture, and the lad immediately approached the doctor.
“It will be hours yet, sir, before it is dark, and I have so much I should like to say to your nephew. Can he not stay till evening, and then our boat shall bring him to your vessel? You will not,” he continued playfully, turning to Rodd, “be afraid of going down?”
“My nephew is at liberty to do as he pleases,” replied the doctor frankly. “What do you say, Rodd?”
“Oh, I want to stay, uncle. I should like to hear all about the escape.”
A few minutes later the two lads were leaning together over the rail watching the departing boat, and chatting together as if they were old schoolfellows who had met again after a long separation, Rodd delighted with his companion, and disposed to feel disappointed in himself lest the refined, polished young officer—one, evidently, of thehaute noblesse—should look down upon him as a rough, rather boorish young Englishman.
Somehow that evening, with its rapid change from glowing sunset light to purple violet darkness, seemed wonderfully quick in coming, and as the brig’s well-manned boat grazed against the schooner’s stern and Rodd turned in climbing up the side to hang by his left hand and extend his right, the feeling of inferiority melted away in the young Frenchman’s warm grasp, as the latter said—
“I suppose we shall be sailing very slowly till we reach the shore, and I want to see more of you. I shall come and fetch you first thing in the morning. Don’t say anything; you must come.Au revoir!”
The brig’s boat pushed off as soon as Rodd had swung himself on deck, and as it glided away into the soft darkness with the regularly handled oars dipping up from the surface of the sea what seemed to be like so much lambent liquid gold, suggesting to Rodd as he gazed after his new friend that the stars might have been melting all day in the torrid sun, and that this was their pale golden light floating upon the sea, a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
Chapter Thirty.The Doctor paints Pictures.“Back again, then, Rodd!”“Oh yes, uncle. Did you think me long?”“So long, my boy, that I was thinking of sending the boat to fetch you, for fear you should be converted into a Frenchman. Hang them all! How I do hate them and their nasty, smooth, polished ways!”“Oh, uncle, you don’t!” cried the boy indignantly. “I do, sir. How dare you contradict me! And I won’t have you getting too fond of that French boy. He and his father set me thinking about old Bony, and as soon as I begin thinking about Bony I have a nasty taste in my mouth.—Well, how did you get on?”“I had a most delightful afternoon, uncle. Young Morny—let’s see, he’s Viscount Morny—”“Viscount grandmother!” snapped out the doctor. “Anybody can be a viscount in France if he’s got an income of a few hundred francs—francs in France of common silver. They rank with golden guineas in your grand old home.”“Oh, well, I don’t know, uncle I only know that he’s the nicest fellow I ever met.”“Gush!” cried the doctor. “I won’t have it, Rodd. I won’t have you making too much of these French people. I don’t like them.”“But you don’t know them, uncle. Both the Count and his son are the most gentlemanly men I ever met.”“The most gentlemanly men you ever met!” cried Uncle Paul mockingly. “Nice puppy you are to set yourself up for a judge! Very gentlemanly, to come in the dark with two boat-loads of savage-looking buccaneers to seize our schooner! And they would, too, if it hadn’t been for Captain Chubb’s courage.”“Oh, uncle, don’t be unreasonable. The poor fellows were desperate. Suppose you had been in such a position as they were.”“I am not going to suppose anything of the sort, sir,” cried the doctor indignantly; “and look here, Rodney, I will not have you setting up your feathers like the miserable young cockerel you are, and beginning to crow at me, just as if you were full grown. It’s growing unbearable, Rodney, and I won’t have it, sir. I am very much displeased with you, and you had better be off to your bunk at once before we come to an open quarrel. It is too much, sir, and if your poor mother were alive and could hear you talking like this she’d—she’d—she’d—there, I don’t know what she wouldn’t say.”“I do,” said the boy.“What would she say, sir?” snapped out the doctor.Rodd stood silent in the darkness for a few moments as he stole his hand under the irate doctor’s arm.“She’d say that dear Uncle Paul had been thinking about old Bony, and that it had made him very cross with me about nothing at all.”Uncle Paul made a sound like the beginning of a speech that would not come, and the silence seemed deeper than ever, nothing being heard but the soft lapping of the water under the vessel’s counter, as she glided slowly through the sea.But Rodd felt the warm arm under which his hand nestled press it closer and closer to the old man’s side, and that he was urged along the deck to keep pace with his elder slowly up and down, up and down, from stem to stern, for some minutes before that speech came—one which was quite different from that which Rodd fully expected to hear, for it was in Uncle Paul’s natural tones once more, as he said very thoughtfully and in quite a confidential manner—“Yes, very gentlemanly, Pickle, my boy; quite the nobleman, I might say, and I am not at all surprised that you helped that poor lad to escape. A little effeminate, but certainly a very nice lad. But I have been thinking about them ever since I came on board this afternoon, and I can’t quite make out that Count. What’s he doing here, my boy? On some mission, and connected with some jealousy and a stop being put to his cruise. I am not quite sure, Pickle.”“Rodney, uncle,” said the boy mischievously.“Pickle, you dog! Be quiet. I am talking sense. But I think I have worked it out. He betrayed himself. He’s a naturalist, boy. He betrayed it in his looks and words as soon as he learned what I was about. Didn’t you notice how eager he was to know about our pursuits?”“Yes, uncle; I noticed that directly.”“Ah, I thought so. A naturalist—a born naturalist, Pickle, and in spite of his being a Frenchman I shall begin to feel a brotherly respect for a follower of the only pursuit worthy of a gentleman. Well, we had a very short sleep last night, so we have got a long one due to our credit to-night, and on the strength of that Captain Chubb has arranged to have supper quite early. This has been a queer day, Pickle, a very queer day, and I am not at all displeased, for I am beginning to think that we have got a very good time before us.”“What time, uncle?”“Ashore, my boy. What do you say to having a couple of the sailors with guns to keep us company while the rest are new-bottoming that brig? Walks in the primeval forest, Rodd, wonderful botanical rambles, shooting birds of glorious plumage, most likely coming across the great man-ape, the chimpanzee. What do you say to that, my boy? Won’t that be a grand change from fishing and dredging and bottling specimens?”“Uncle Paul, don’t!” cried the boy.“Don’t? What do you mean, sir?”“You were talking just now of our having a good long sleep to-night to make up for all we lost since we went to bed last.”“Well, sir, what of that?”“How’s a fellow to sleep, uncle, with such things as that to think of? Why, I shan’t get a wink for thinking of the big chimpanzees; and as for eating any supper now, why, my appetite has completely gone.”“Stuff!” cried Uncle Paul, pressing the lad’s arm to his side. “Rodd, my boy, we must cork a bottle or two and throw them overboard to-morrow, and then have a little practice with bullets in our guns. We may come across dangerous beasts there, leopards and the like, while that there are great man-apes in those forests of the West Coast there is not a doubt.”“Well, I think I could shoot at one of those great spotted cats, uncle, all tooth and claw; but wouldn’t it be rather queer to shoot one of those big monkeys which look so much like human beings? I mean those big ones with ears like ours, and no tails.”“Humph! Ha! Well, I— Yes, all right, captain! We are coming down.”
“Back again, then, Rodd!”
“Oh yes, uncle. Did you think me long?”
“So long, my boy, that I was thinking of sending the boat to fetch you, for fear you should be converted into a Frenchman. Hang them all! How I do hate them and their nasty, smooth, polished ways!”
“Oh, uncle, you don’t!” cried the boy indignantly. “I do, sir. How dare you contradict me! And I won’t have you getting too fond of that French boy. He and his father set me thinking about old Bony, and as soon as I begin thinking about Bony I have a nasty taste in my mouth.—Well, how did you get on?”
“I had a most delightful afternoon, uncle. Young Morny—let’s see, he’s Viscount Morny—”
“Viscount grandmother!” snapped out the doctor. “Anybody can be a viscount in France if he’s got an income of a few hundred francs—francs in France of common silver. They rank with golden guineas in your grand old home.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know, uncle I only know that he’s the nicest fellow I ever met.”
“Gush!” cried the doctor. “I won’t have it, Rodd. I won’t have you making too much of these French people. I don’t like them.”
“But you don’t know them, uncle. Both the Count and his son are the most gentlemanly men I ever met.”
“The most gentlemanly men you ever met!” cried Uncle Paul mockingly. “Nice puppy you are to set yourself up for a judge! Very gentlemanly, to come in the dark with two boat-loads of savage-looking buccaneers to seize our schooner! And they would, too, if it hadn’t been for Captain Chubb’s courage.”
“Oh, uncle, don’t be unreasonable. The poor fellows were desperate. Suppose you had been in such a position as they were.”
“I am not going to suppose anything of the sort, sir,” cried the doctor indignantly; “and look here, Rodney, I will not have you setting up your feathers like the miserable young cockerel you are, and beginning to crow at me, just as if you were full grown. It’s growing unbearable, Rodney, and I won’t have it, sir. I am very much displeased with you, and you had better be off to your bunk at once before we come to an open quarrel. It is too much, sir, and if your poor mother were alive and could hear you talking like this she’d—she’d—she’d—there, I don’t know what she wouldn’t say.”
“I do,” said the boy.
“What would she say, sir?” snapped out the doctor.
Rodd stood silent in the darkness for a few moments as he stole his hand under the irate doctor’s arm.
“She’d say that dear Uncle Paul had been thinking about old Bony, and that it had made him very cross with me about nothing at all.”
Uncle Paul made a sound like the beginning of a speech that would not come, and the silence seemed deeper than ever, nothing being heard but the soft lapping of the water under the vessel’s counter, as she glided slowly through the sea.
But Rodd felt the warm arm under which his hand nestled press it closer and closer to the old man’s side, and that he was urged along the deck to keep pace with his elder slowly up and down, up and down, from stem to stern, for some minutes before that speech came—one which was quite different from that which Rodd fully expected to hear, for it was in Uncle Paul’s natural tones once more, as he said very thoughtfully and in quite a confidential manner—
“Yes, very gentlemanly, Pickle, my boy; quite the nobleman, I might say, and I am not at all surprised that you helped that poor lad to escape. A little effeminate, but certainly a very nice lad. But I have been thinking about them ever since I came on board this afternoon, and I can’t quite make out that Count. What’s he doing here, my boy? On some mission, and connected with some jealousy and a stop being put to his cruise. I am not quite sure, Pickle.”
“Rodney, uncle,” said the boy mischievously.
“Pickle, you dog! Be quiet. I am talking sense. But I think I have worked it out. He betrayed himself. He’s a naturalist, boy. He betrayed it in his looks and words as soon as he learned what I was about. Didn’t you notice how eager he was to know about our pursuits?”
“Yes, uncle; I noticed that directly.”
“Ah, I thought so. A naturalist—a born naturalist, Pickle, and in spite of his being a Frenchman I shall begin to feel a brotherly respect for a follower of the only pursuit worthy of a gentleman. Well, we had a very short sleep last night, so we have got a long one due to our credit to-night, and on the strength of that Captain Chubb has arranged to have supper quite early. This has been a queer day, Pickle, a very queer day, and I am not at all displeased, for I am beginning to think that we have got a very good time before us.”
“What time, uncle?”
“Ashore, my boy. What do you say to having a couple of the sailors with guns to keep us company while the rest are new-bottoming that brig? Walks in the primeval forest, Rodd, wonderful botanical rambles, shooting birds of glorious plumage, most likely coming across the great man-ape, the chimpanzee. What do you say to that, my boy? Won’t that be a grand change from fishing and dredging and bottling specimens?”
“Uncle Paul, don’t!” cried the boy.
“Don’t? What do you mean, sir?”
“You were talking just now of our having a good long sleep to-night to make up for all we lost since we went to bed last.”
“Well, sir, what of that?”
“How’s a fellow to sleep, uncle, with such things as that to think of? Why, I shan’t get a wink for thinking of the big chimpanzees; and as for eating any supper now, why, my appetite has completely gone.”
“Stuff!” cried Uncle Paul, pressing the lad’s arm to his side. “Rodd, my boy, we must cork a bottle or two and throw them overboard to-morrow, and then have a little practice with bullets in our guns. We may come across dangerous beasts there, leopards and the like, while that there are great man-apes in those forests of the West Coast there is not a doubt.”
“Well, I think I could shoot at one of those great spotted cats, uncle, all tooth and claw; but wouldn’t it be rather queer to shoot one of those big monkeys which look so much like human beings? I mean those big ones with ears like ours, and no tails.”
“Humph! Ha! Well, I— Yes, all right, captain! We are coming down.”
Chapter Thirty One.Great Friends.The days that followed the attempt to salve the brig after so strange an introduction to her commander and his son, fell calm all through the hot sunny time, and only that a pleasant cool breeze ushered in the evening and continued till the sun rose again, very little progress would have been made by the schooner and its consort, sailing east and south.But nobody seemed troubled. When the French and English sailors were together they were the best of friends; while long conversations and arguments often took place between the doctor and his new friend, the skipper generally letting them have the cabin to themselves.Sometimes they drifted into political questions and came very near to losing their tempers; but each mastered and kept down his opinions, for a genuine feeling of liking had arisen between them, and the Count seemed never weary of listening to Uncle Paul’s disquisitions upon the marvels of natural history, nor of studying with him the wonders of creation which he had collected and had to show. Then day by day the brig, which was freed every day from as much water as she had gained during the night, sailed steadily on in the schooner’s wake in full charge of her stern fierce-looking French mate—one of the most silent of men.And while the Count was mostly with the doctor, literally taking lessons in pelagic lore, the two lads had become inseparable.“Look here,” said Rodd, almost hotly, one day, “if ever you say a word again about my helping you to escape at Dartmoor, you and I are going to leave off being friends.”Morny laughed, a pleasant, almost girlish smile lighting up his well-cut Gallic features.“Why, Rodd,” he cried, “isn’t that rather hard? I used to think that was the most horrible time in my life, but I feel now that one part of it was the most delightful.”“There you go again,” cried Rodd. “You are beginning.”“No, no, I wasn’t. But I can’t forget being a prisoner in England, and about all that I went through there with my father when he was bad so long with his wound.”“Bad so long with his wound?” said Rodd eagerly. “Ah! You may talk about that. Yes, I should like to hear. Tell me all about your being taken prisoners, and how it happened.”“For you never to be friends with me any more?” said the French lad maliciously.“No, no, no. But I hate for you to be what you call grateful. You are quite a good sort of chap, and you speak our language so well that I forget you are not English sometimes, till you begin to be grateful to me for saving you, and then I feel that you are French. There, now you may tell me all about it—I mean about before you met me fishing.”The two lads were under the awning upon this particular day just amidships. It was a hot and breathless time, but both were pretty well inured to the weather, and were so interested in the subjects supplied to them by Nature in the way of floating wonders that they never troubled themselves about the heat.Upon this occasion they were lying together upon the deck, suffering to a certain extent from lassitude consequent upon the heat. There was a man at the wheel, and Joe Cross was seated upon the main cross-trees with a spy-glass across his legs, ready to raise it from time to time and direct it eastward to try and pierce the faint silvery haze that lay low upon the horizon. The boys had grown very silent and thoughtful, Moray trying to recall memories of the past so that he might respond to his English friend’s demand upon him that he should relate something of his old experiences in connection with the war and his being brought over to England, and so deep in thought that he paid no heed to his companion. Meantime, Rodd, without any desire to play the eavesdropper, lay listening to the scraps of conversation which came up through the cabin skylight, growing a little louder than usual, for, as was occasionally the case, an argument was afloat respecting the late war, the doctor according to his wont growing wroth upon an allusion being made by his guest to the ex-Emperor Napoleon; and there were evidently threatenings of a storm, which was, however, suppressed by the grave dignity of the Count and a feeling of annoyance which attacked Uncle Paul upon realising that he had ventured upon dangerous ground.“Oh, Uncle Paul,” said Rodd to himself, and he lay and laughed softly, making Morny start.“Was I talking aloud?” said the French lad, flushing.“You? No! Didn’t you hear? It was Uncle Paul. Your father was talking about Napoleon, and directly his name is mentioned uncle begins to boil over.”“Ah, yes, so you have told me, and I gathered something of the kind. My father should not have spoken about the Emperor, though he venerates his name.”“Do you?” said Rodd.“I?” replied Morny proudly. “Of course. He is the greatest man who ever lived.”“I say; I’m not Uncle Paul.”“Of course not. But why do you say that?”“Because it seems as if you were trying to lead me on, like your father did with uncle.”“Ah, no, no, don’t think that. Better to let such things rest.”“Yes,” said Rodd. “I didn’t hear much of what they were saying, only they talked loudly sometimes about the way the French and English hate one another. It seems so stupid. Why should they? I don’t hate you; and I suppose you don’t hate me.”“Of course not! You have given me plenty of cause.”“Whoa!” shouted Rodd. “You are getting on dangerous ground again. Now, look here; why should the French hate the English?”“Because the English never did us anything but harm.”“Nonsense!” said Rodd coolly. “Now, look here, suppose you and I had a good fight, and I got the best of it—gave you an unlucky crack on the bridge of your nose, and made both your eyes swell up so that you couldn’t see.”“Well, it would be very brutal,” said Morny. “Gentlemen should fight with the small sword.”“Oh, I like that!” said Rodd merrily. “And then one of them sticks it in the other’s corpus and makes him bleed, if he does nothing worse. Why, people have been killed.”“Yes, in the cause of honour,” said Morny, slowly and thoughtfully.“But that wouldn’t have happened if they had been fighting with their fists.”“It’s of no use to argue a matter like this with an Englishman,” said Morny. “He cannot see such things with the eyes of a Frenchman.”“And a jolly good job too,” said Rodd. “But we are running away from what we have been talking about. I was saying, suppose you and I were fighting and I hit you on the bridge of the nose and made your eyes swell up so that you couldn’t see; that would be no reason why you should always hate me afterwards. Wouldn’t it be much better if the one who was beaten owned it and shook hands so as to be good friends again?”“Hah!” said Morny, giving vent to a long deep sigh.“Uncle Paul always says that there is so much good to do in the world that there is no room for animosity or hatred, especially as life is so very short. Here, I don’t see that we English have done anything worse to you French than conquering you now and then.”“What!” cried Morny. “What have you to say to the way in which you treated your prisoners? You were never taken captive with your father—I mean your uncle, and shut up in a great cheerless building right out upon a cold, bleak, dreary moor.”“No,” said Rodd gravely.“My father and I were, after a sea-fight in which one of your great bullying ships battered our little sloop of war almost to pieces and took us into Plymouth, not conquered, for our brave fellows fought till nearly all were killed or wounded.”“I say,” cried Rodd earnestly, “I didn’t know about this! Were you wounded?”For answer Morny with flashing eyes literally snatched up his shirt-sleeve, baring his thin white left arm and displaying in the fleshy part a curious puckering and discoloration, evidently the scar of a bad wound.“Poor old chap!” said Rodd softly. “I say, how was that done?”“Grape-shot,” replied Morny, drawing himself up proudly and deliberately beginning to draw down and button his sleeve.“Did it hurt much?”“Yes,” said Morny rather contemptuously. “My father was wounded too, so that he had to be carried below, or else we should never have struck, but he would have gone down as a brave captain should with colours flying, fighting for the Emperor to the very last.”“Then I am precious glad that the Count was taken below,” said Rodd.“Why?” snapped out the French lad fiercely.“Because of course you would have sunk with him, for you couldn’t have swum for your life with a wounded arm.”“No; but shouldn’t I have had my name written in history?”“Perhaps. But you and I would never have met and become such good friends; for you know we are precious good friends when we can agree.”Morny laughed.“Yes,” he said pleasantly, “when we can agree. But do you think it was good treatment to keep us shut up there as prisoners on that dreary moor?”“Let’s see,” said Rodd; “Dartmoor—all amongst the streams and tors, as they call them?”“Yes; a great granite desert.”“Oh, but it was very jolly there,” said Rodd.“I don’t know what you mean by jolly,” said Morny contemptuously.“Why, they didn’t keep you shut up. They let you roam about as you liked, didn’t they, as long as you didn’t try to escape?”“Well—yes; but it was a long time before I went out at all,” replied Morny sadly. “For months I never left my father’s side, and for a long time I never expected that he’d recover; and as I used to sit there by his bedside, watching, I began to get to hate the English more and more, and long to get away so as to begin righting for my country again. But of course I couldn’t leave my wounded father’s side.”“No,” said Rodd slowly and in a low voice, as if repeating the words to himself. “Of course you couldn’t leave your father’s side.”“No,” repeated Morny softly, “I couldn’t leave my father’s side. But after a time he made me go. He said my wound would never heal—for the surgeon had told him so—if he kept me shut up day after day, and that I must go out with the other prisoners and roam about on the moor; but I said I wouldn’t leave him, and I didn’t till he told me one day that I was growing white and thin and weak, and that he could see how I was suffering from the pain in my wound.”“Ah, yes,” said Rodd, in a low tone full of earnestness. “It must have given you terrible pain.”“And at last he said,” continued Morny, “that if he saw me getting well it would be the best cure for his injuries, but that if I were obstinate and refused to obey him now that he was lying there weak and helpless, it would surely send him to his grave.”“And then of course you went?” replied Rodd excitedly.“Yes, I went then,” replied Morny, “for at last I had begun to see that he was right. And then every morning after we had been all mustered, as you call it, and were free to go outside the gates, I went out with a lot more right on to the wild desert. But I wanted to be alone, and as soon as I could I wandered away up amongst the great stones, and sat down to think and rage against myself for feeling so happy when I wanted to be miserable and in despair about our fate. For it was as if something within me was mocking at my sufferings and trying to make me laugh and feel bright and joyous, for— Oh, how well I can remember it all up there! The sun was shining brightly, and the great block of stone upon which I sat down felt hot and so different to the cold cheerless prison inside. Every here and there amongst the stones there was the beautiful soft green grass, and little low shrubs were in full blossom, some a of rich purple, and some of the brightest gold, while in two or three places far up in the blue sky thealouetteswere singing like they do in France; and every puff of soft warm wind that floated by was scented with the sweet fragrance of that little herb—I forget its name—that which the bees buzz about.”“Wild thyme?” said Rodd quickly.“Ah, yes; wild thyme. And there for a long time I sat nursing my left arm, fighting against what seemed to be a feeling of happiness, and trying to think of all the evil that the English had done us, and what I would do as soon as I got free. But it was too much for me. I couldn’t do it, and what I had looked upon from the prison windows from between the bars would not seem to be the same wild stony desert, but beautiful and full of hope and joy.”“Ah!” cried Rodd. “That’s because you were getting better. I know what you felt. I was like that once after a bad fever, and when I was taken out one fine morning for the first time, though I was weak as a rat I felt as if I must run and jump and shout all about nothing; but it was because everything looked so beautiful, and I knew that I must be getting well.”The boys’ eyes met for a few moments, and then Morny bowed his head slowly and went on.“Yes,” he said quietly, “I suppose it was a beautiful healthy place, and it began to make me feel like that; and as I looked round—for I had climbed very high—I could see right down into parts of a valley that was all full of sunshine and flashing light, for there was a little dancing stream running swiftly along, and as I looked down into it and saw how it widened here and narrowed there as it flashed amongst the great rocks of granite, it set me thinking about home, and instead of going on planning how I would revenge myself upon the English, I began to wonder whether there would be trout there too, and soon afterwards I began to creep slowly down so as to see. And then I remember that I burst out laughing at myself, for it seemed so droll. My legs would keep on bending under me, and I had to sit down and rest every now and then.”“You were so weak,” said Rodd earnestly.“Yes, that was it,” cried Morny; “but I didn’t understand at first, and somehow I didn’t seem to mind a bit, but sat down and rested time after time, till at last I got right down to the edge of the little river, all shallow and dotted with blocks of stone; and there at first were the little trout darting about to hide themselves, scared away by my shadow upon the water. But as I sat down to watch they soon came out again, and began leaping at the little gnats that were flitting about the surface. Then do you know how that made me feel?”“Well,” said Rodd, “I know how it would make an English boy feel—myself, for instance.”“How?”“As if he’d like to have my namesake with only onedin his hand, and begin whipping the stream.”“Yes, that’s how I felt,” said Morny softly.“I know about those trout on Dartmoor,” cried Rodd, “right up on the moor. I know somebody who used to go and fish there, and he told me that he could go and catch dozens and dozens and dozens of them whenever he liked. But they were so very small.”“Yes,” said Morny, speaking dreamily now, with his eyes so lit up, that as Rodd watched his thin delicate face, he thought how handsome and well-bred he looked.“Too good-looking for a boy, but more fitted for a girl,” he mused.“And did you go and fish?” he cried, as he suddenly caught Morny’s eyes gazing at him questioningly.“Oh yes. I went back to the prison and spoke to one of our guards—a frowning, fierce-looking fellow—and I told him how ill my father was, and that he never seemed as if he could eat the prison rations, as they called them, and that I wanted to try and catch some of the little fish on the moor and cook them, and try if I could tempt him with them.”“And what did he say?” cried Rodd, for Morny had stopped.“He made my heart feel on fire at first, for he growled out ‘Bah! Rubbish! There, go on in.’ ‘Savage!’ I said to myself. ‘Just like an Englishman!’”“What a brute!” cried Rodd. “But I say, old chap, our fellows are not all like that.”“No,” said Morny. “But I hadn’t done. Next minute he shouted after me, ‘Halt!’ and when I stopped and looked round he called out, ‘Ahoy! Jim!’ and another of the guards with his piece over his shoulder marched up to where we stood, and the man I had first spoken to turned to me and said, ‘Here, you tell him what you said to me.’”“And did you?” cried Rodd.“I felt as if the words would choke me at first, but just then I seemed to see the trout hot and brown upon a dish and my father, sick and pale, looking at them longingly, and that made me speak to the other guard, who was scowling at me. And as I spoke a grim smile came over his face, and his eyes twinkled, and he showed his teeth. ‘All right, youngster,’ he said. ‘Got a rod?’ I shook my head. ‘No line? No flies?’ I shook my head again and again. ‘All right, young ’un,’ he said. ‘You come to me two hours before sundown; I shall be on duty then. I’ll set you up with a bit of tackle. But I say, you Frenchies don’t know how to throw a fly!’ ‘I used to,’ I replied, ‘at home, in France.’ ‘Lor’, did you?’ he said. ‘Hear that, Billy? I never knew as a Frenchman knew how to fish. But that’s all right, youngster—only my ignorance. A fisherman’s a fisherman the wide world round.’”“Well?” said Rodd, for his companion had stopped.“Well?” said Morny.“Go on.”“What about?”“Well, you are a chap! Don’t you know I was always very fond of fishing?”“I know you like fishing, for I saw you enjoying it that day when—”“Steady!” cried Rodd.“I’ve done,” said Morny.“But I don’t want you to have done.”“Why, you forbade me to touch upon what you call dangerous ground.”“Bah! That’s another thing. I don’t want you to be grateful. But of course I like to hear about you going fishing. I could almost wish that you and I could go and have a few hours together on Dartmoor now.”“And we cannot,” said Morny quietly.“No; but we might try for bonito or dolphins. But go on. I want you to tell me about how you got on. Did you go to that prison guard two hours before sundown?”“Oh yes. He was as friendly as ever he could be, just because he found that I was fond of fishing, and lent me his rod and line and flies that he made himself, and told me the best places to go to, and he was as pleased as I was when I came back to the prison with a dozen and a half of little trout. Oh, I remember so well almost every word he said.”“Well, what did he say?” cried Rodd eagerly.“Oh, he was a good-humoured droll fellow, though he looked so gruff, for when I showed him my fish he slapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Well done, young ’un! You are one of the right sort after all.’ And then he told me to take the fish into his quarters, and his missus, as he called her, would cook them for me so that I could take them to my sick father; and when I thanked him he said it was all right, and that he and his ‘missus’ had been talking together about how bad the French captain looked, and that I had better get him a nice little dish like that as often as I could.”Morny stopped again, and Rodd gazed at him impatiently.“Here, I say,” he cried, “what a tantalising sort of chap you are! Why, I could tell a story better than you.”“Why, I have told you the story,” said Morny.“No, you haven’t. You keep stopping short when you come to what interests me most.”“Nonsense! You don’t want me to go on telling you about catching more fish and getting them fried day after day, and about taking them up to my father.”“What do you know about it?” cried Rodd. “It’s just what I do want you to tell me. Did he like them and eat them, and did they do him good? Those are the best bits.”“You are a droll of boy,” said Morny, laughing.“I’m a what?” cried Rodd.“Droll of boy—drôle de garçon. C’est juste, n’est-ce pas?”“Oh, if you like,” cried Rodd merrily; “but if you don’t think those are the best parts of the story, which are?”“Ah!” said Morny thoughtfully. “The part that I remember most is feeling that somehow things are not always so black as they look, that Dartmoor was not such a dreary desert, and that the fierce frowning guards were not so hard and unpleasant as they seemed. There were times after that when I was very happy there, for my father’s wound began to get better, and I found myself strong and well again. But after a time there was a new governor there, who behaved very harshly to the prisoners, and as we got well the great longing for freedom used to grow within us, and some of the men tried to escape. This made the governor more harsh and stern. We were kept more shut up—”“And I suppose that made you long all the more to get free?”“Of course,” replied Morny; “and at last there came a time when we heard a little news from across the sea—news which seemed to make my father the Count half wild with longing, and one day he told me that he had had a lot of napoleons sent to him to help him to escape, and that the first fine day we were allowed out for exercise upon the moor we would make a dash for liberty.”“You should have done it when you were out fishing,” said Rodd.“Oh no. The fishing had been stopped for a long time—ever since the first attempts had been made to escape.”“Oh, I see,” said Rodd.“And at last the day came,” continued Morny, “and we made our attempt, but only to find that we were very closely guarded, and that soldiers were on the look-out in all directions; and in the attempt my father and I became separated, and I should have been taken if it had not been that—”“Look here,” cried Rodd, springing up, “there’s Joe Cross signalling to me from the maintop. He can see something. I say, that happened luckily for you, young fellow, for you were just getting on to dangerous ground.”
The days that followed the attempt to salve the brig after so strange an introduction to her commander and his son, fell calm all through the hot sunny time, and only that a pleasant cool breeze ushered in the evening and continued till the sun rose again, very little progress would have been made by the schooner and its consort, sailing east and south.
But nobody seemed troubled. When the French and English sailors were together they were the best of friends; while long conversations and arguments often took place between the doctor and his new friend, the skipper generally letting them have the cabin to themselves.
Sometimes they drifted into political questions and came very near to losing their tempers; but each mastered and kept down his opinions, for a genuine feeling of liking had arisen between them, and the Count seemed never weary of listening to Uncle Paul’s disquisitions upon the marvels of natural history, nor of studying with him the wonders of creation which he had collected and had to show. Then day by day the brig, which was freed every day from as much water as she had gained during the night, sailed steadily on in the schooner’s wake in full charge of her stern fierce-looking French mate—one of the most silent of men.
And while the Count was mostly with the doctor, literally taking lessons in pelagic lore, the two lads had become inseparable.
“Look here,” said Rodd, almost hotly, one day, “if ever you say a word again about my helping you to escape at Dartmoor, you and I are going to leave off being friends.”
Morny laughed, a pleasant, almost girlish smile lighting up his well-cut Gallic features.
“Why, Rodd,” he cried, “isn’t that rather hard? I used to think that was the most horrible time in my life, but I feel now that one part of it was the most delightful.”
“There you go again,” cried Rodd. “You are beginning.”
“No, no, I wasn’t. But I can’t forget being a prisoner in England, and about all that I went through there with my father when he was bad so long with his wound.”
“Bad so long with his wound?” said Rodd eagerly. “Ah! You may talk about that. Yes, I should like to hear. Tell me all about your being taken prisoners, and how it happened.”
“For you never to be friends with me any more?” said the French lad maliciously.
“No, no, no. But I hate for you to be what you call grateful. You are quite a good sort of chap, and you speak our language so well that I forget you are not English sometimes, till you begin to be grateful to me for saving you, and then I feel that you are French. There, now you may tell me all about it—I mean about before you met me fishing.”
The two lads were under the awning upon this particular day just amidships. It was a hot and breathless time, but both were pretty well inured to the weather, and were so interested in the subjects supplied to them by Nature in the way of floating wonders that they never troubled themselves about the heat.
Upon this occasion they were lying together upon the deck, suffering to a certain extent from lassitude consequent upon the heat. There was a man at the wheel, and Joe Cross was seated upon the main cross-trees with a spy-glass across his legs, ready to raise it from time to time and direct it eastward to try and pierce the faint silvery haze that lay low upon the horizon. The boys had grown very silent and thoughtful, Moray trying to recall memories of the past so that he might respond to his English friend’s demand upon him that he should relate something of his old experiences in connection with the war and his being brought over to England, and so deep in thought that he paid no heed to his companion. Meantime, Rodd, without any desire to play the eavesdropper, lay listening to the scraps of conversation which came up through the cabin skylight, growing a little louder than usual, for, as was occasionally the case, an argument was afloat respecting the late war, the doctor according to his wont growing wroth upon an allusion being made by his guest to the ex-Emperor Napoleon; and there were evidently threatenings of a storm, which was, however, suppressed by the grave dignity of the Count and a feeling of annoyance which attacked Uncle Paul upon realising that he had ventured upon dangerous ground.
“Oh, Uncle Paul,” said Rodd to himself, and he lay and laughed softly, making Morny start.
“Was I talking aloud?” said the French lad, flushing.
“You? No! Didn’t you hear? It was Uncle Paul. Your father was talking about Napoleon, and directly his name is mentioned uncle begins to boil over.”
“Ah, yes, so you have told me, and I gathered something of the kind. My father should not have spoken about the Emperor, though he venerates his name.”
“Do you?” said Rodd.
“I?” replied Morny proudly. “Of course. He is the greatest man who ever lived.”
“I say; I’m not Uncle Paul.”
“Of course not. But why do you say that?”
“Because it seems as if you were trying to lead me on, like your father did with uncle.”
“Ah, no, no, don’t think that. Better to let such things rest.”
“Yes,” said Rodd. “I didn’t hear much of what they were saying, only they talked loudly sometimes about the way the French and English hate one another. It seems so stupid. Why should they? I don’t hate you; and I suppose you don’t hate me.”
“Of course not! You have given me plenty of cause.”
“Whoa!” shouted Rodd. “You are getting on dangerous ground again. Now, look here; why should the French hate the English?”
“Because the English never did us anything but harm.”
“Nonsense!” said Rodd coolly. “Now, look here, suppose you and I had a good fight, and I got the best of it—gave you an unlucky crack on the bridge of your nose, and made both your eyes swell up so that you couldn’t see.”
“Well, it would be very brutal,” said Morny. “Gentlemen should fight with the small sword.”
“Oh, I like that!” said Rodd merrily. “And then one of them sticks it in the other’s corpus and makes him bleed, if he does nothing worse. Why, people have been killed.”
“Yes, in the cause of honour,” said Morny, slowly and thoughtfully.
“But that wouldn’t have happened if they had been fighting with their fists.”
“It’s of no use to argue a matter like this with an Englishman,” said Morny. “He cannot see such things with the eyes of a Frenchman.”
“And a jolly good job too,” said Rodd. “But we are running away from what we have been talking about. I was saying, suppose you and I were fighting and I hit you on the bridge of the nose and made your eyes swell up so that you couldn’t see; that would be no reason why you should always hate me afterwards. Wouldn’t it be much better if the one who was beaten owned it and shook hands so as to be good friends again?”
“Hah!” said Morny, giving vent to a long deep sigh.
“Uncle Paul always says that there is so much good to do in the world that there is no room for animosity or hatred, especially as life is so very short. Here, I don’t see that we English have done anything worse to you French than conquering you now and then.”
“What!” cried Morny. “What have you to say to the way in which you treated your prisoners? You were never taken captive with your father—I mean your uncle, and shut up in a great cheerless building right out upon a cold, bleak, dreary moor.”
“No,” said Rodd gravely.
“My father and I were, after a sea-fight in which one of your great bullying ships battered our little sloop of war almost to pieces and took us into Plymouth, not conquered, for our brave fellows fought till nearly all were killed or wounded.”
“I say,” cried Rodd earnestly, “I didn’t know about this! Were you wounded?”
For answer Morny with flashing eyes literally snatched up his shirt-sleeve, baring his thin white left arm and displaying in the fleshy part a curious puckering and discoloration, evidently the scar of a bad wound.
“Poor old chap!” said Rodd softly. “I say, how was that done?”
“Grape-shot,” replied Morny, drawing himself up proudly and deliberately beginning to draw down and button his sleeve.
“Did it hurt much?”
“Yes,” said Morny rather contemptuously. “My father was wounded too, so that he had to be carried below, or else we should never have struck, but he would have gone down as a brave captain should with colours flying, fighting for the Emperor to the very last.”
“Then I am precious glad that the Count was taken below,” said Rodd.
“Why?” snapped out the French lad fiercely.
“Because of course you would have sunk with him, for you couldn’t have swum for your life with a wounded arm.”
“No; but shouldn’t I have had my name written in history?”
“Perhaps. But you and I would never have met and become such good friends; for you know we are precious good friends when we can agree.”
Morny laughed.
“Yes,” he said pleasantly, “when we can agree. But do you think it was good treatment to keep us shut up there as prisoners on that dreary moor?”
“Let’s see,” said Rodd; “Dartmoor—all amongst the streams and tors, as they call them?”
“Yes; a great granite desert.”
“Oh, but it was very jolly there,” said Rodd.
“I don’t know what you mean by jolly,” said Morny contemptuously.
“Why, they didn’t keep you shut up. They let you roam about as you liked, didn’t they, as long as you didn’t try to escape?”
“Well—yes; but it was a long time before I went out at all,” replied Morny sadly. “For months I never left my father’s side, and for a long time I never expected that he’d recover; and as I used to sit there by his bedside, watching, I began to get to hate the English more and more, and long to get away so as to begin righting for my country again. But of course I couldn’t leave my wounded father’s side.”
“No,” said Rodd slowly and in a low voice, as if repeating the words to himself. “Of course you couldn’t leave your father’s side.”
“No,” repeated Morny softly, “I couldn’t leave my father’s side. But after a time he made me go. He said my wound would never heal—for the surgeon had told him so—if he kept me shut up day after day, and that I must go out with the other prisoners and roam about on the moor; but I said I wouldn’t leave him, and I didn’t till he told me one day that I was growing white and thin and weak, and that he could see how I was suffering from the pain in my wound.”
“Ah, yes,” said Rodd, in a low tone full of earnestness. “It must have given you terrible pain.”
“And at last he said,” continued Morny, “that if he saw me getting well it would be the best cure for his injuries, but that if I were obstinate and refused to obey him now that he was lying there weak and helpless, it would surely send him to his grave.”
“And then of course you went?” replied Rodd excitedly.
“Yes, I went then,” replied Morny, “for at last I had begun to see that he was right. And then every morning after we had been all mustered, as you call it, and were free to go outside the gates, I went out with a lot more right on to the wild desert. But I wanted to be alone, and as soon as I could I wandered away up amongst the great stones, and sat down to think and rage against myself for feeling so happy when I wanted to be miserable and in despair about our fate. For it was as if something within me was mocking at my sufferings and trying to make me laugh and feel bright and joyous, for— Oh, how well I can remember it all up there! The sun was shining brightly, and the great block of stone upon which I sat down felt hot and so different to the cold cheerless prison inside. Every here and there amongst the stones there was the beautiful soft green grass, and little low shrubs were in full blossom, some a of rich purple, and some of the brightest gold, while in two or three places far up in the blue sky thealouetteswere singing like they do in France; and every puff of soft warm wind that floated by was scented with the sweet fragrance of that little herb—I forget its name—that which the bees buzz about.”
“Wild thyme?” said Rodd quickly.
“Ah, yes; wild thyme. And there for a long time I sat nursing my left arm, fighting against what seemed to be a feeling of happiness, and trying to think of all the evil that the English had done us, and what I would do as soon as I got free. But it was too much for me. I couldn’t do it, and what I had looked upon from the prison windows from between the bars would not seem to be the same wild stony desert, but beautiful and full of hope and joy.”
“Ah!” cried Rodd. “That’s because you were getting better. I know what you felt. I was like that once after a bad fever, and when I was taken out one fine morning for the first time, though I was weak as a rat I felt as if I must run and jump and shout all about nothing; but it was because everything looked so beautiful, and I knew that I must be getting well.”
The boys’ eyes met for a few moments, and then Morny bowed his head slowly and went on.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “I suppose it was a beautiful healthy place, and it began to make me feel like that; and as I looked round—for I had climbed very high—I could see right down into parts of a valley that was all full of sunshine and flashing light, for there was a little dancing stream running swiftly along, and as I looked down into it and saw how it widened here and narrowed there as it flashed amongst the great rocks of granite, it set me thinking about home, and instead of going on planning how I would revenge myself upon the English, I began to wonder whether there would be trout there too, and soon afterwards I began to creep slowly down so as to see. And then I remember that I burst out laughing at myself, for it seemed so droll. My legs would keep on bending under me, and I had to sit down and rest every now and then.”
“You were so weak,” said Rodd earnestly.
“Yes, that was it,” cried Morny; “but I didn’t understand at first, and somehow I didn’t seem to mind a bit, but sat down and rested time after time, till at last I got right down to the edge of the little river, all shallow and dotted with blocks of stone; and there at first were the little trout darting about to hide themselves, scared away by my shadow upon the water. But as I sat down to watch they soon came out again, and began leaping at the little gnats that were flitting about the surface. Then do you know how that made me feel?”
“Well,” said Rodd, “I know how it would make an English boy feel—myself, for instance.”
“How?”
“As if he’d like to have my namesake with only onedin his hand, and begin whipping the stream.”
“Yes, that’s how I felt,” said Morny softly.
“I know about those trout on Dartmoor,” cried Rodd, “right up on the moor. I know somebody who used to go and fish there, and he told me that he could go and catch dozens and dozens and dozens of them whenever he liked. But they were so very small.”
“Yes,” said Morny, speaking dreamily now, with his eyes so lit up, that as Rodd watched his thin delicate face, he thought how handsome and well-bred he looked.
“Too good-looking for a boy, but more fitted for a girl,” he mused.
“And did you go and fish?” he cried, as he suddenly caught Morny’s eyes gazing at him questioningly.
“Oh yes. I went back to the prison and spoke to one of our guards—a frowning, fierce-looking fellow—and I told him how ill my father was, and that he never seemed as if he could eat the prison rations, as they called them, and that I wanted to try and catch some of the little fish on the moor and cook them, and try if I could tempt him with them.”
“And what did he say?” cried Rodd, for Morny had stopped.
“He made my heart feel on fire at first, for he growled out ‘Bah! Rubbish! There, go on in.’ ‘Savage!’ I said to myself. ‘Just like an Englishman!’”
“What a brute!” cried Rodd. “But I say, old chap, our fellows are not all like that.”
“No,” said Morny. “But I hadn’t done. Next minute he shouted after me, ‘Halt!’ and when I stopped and looked round he called out, ‘Ahoy! Jim!’ and another of the guards with his piece over his shoulder marched up to where we stood, and the man I had first spoken to turned to me and said, ‘Here, you tell him what you said to me.’”
“And did you?” cried Rodd.
“I felt as if the words would choke me at first, but just then I seemed to see the trout hot and brown upon a dish and my father, sick and pale, looking at them longingly, and that made me speak to the other guard, who was scowling at me. And as I spoke a grim smile came over his face, and his eyes twinkled, and he showed his teeth. ‘All right, youngster,’ he said. ‘Got a rod?’ I shook my head. ‘No line? No flies?’ I shook my head again and again. ‘All right, young ’un,’ he said. ‘You come to me two hours before sundown; I shall be on duty then. I’ll set you up with a bit of tackle. But I say, you Frenchies don’t know how to throw a fly!’ ‘I used to,’ I replied, ‘at home, in France.’ ‘Lor’, did you?’ he said. ‘Hear that, Billy? I never knew as a Frenchman knew how to fish. But that’s all right, youngster—only my ignorance. A fisherman’s a fisherman the wide world round.’”
“Well?” said Rodd, for his companion had stopped.
“Well?” said Morny.
“Go on.”
“What about?”
“Well, you are a chap! Don’t you know I was always very fond of fishing?”
“I know you like fishing, for I saw you enjoying it that day when—”
“Steady!” cried Rodd.
“I’ve done,” said Morny.
“But I don’t want you to have done.”
“Why, you forbade me to touch upon what you call dangerous ground.”
“Bah! That’s another thing. I don’t want you to be grateful. But of course I like to hear about you going fishing. I could almost wish that you and I could go and have a few hours together on Dartmoor now.”
“And we cannot,” said Morny quietly.
“No; but we might try for bonito or dolphins. But go on. I want you to tell me about how you got on. Did you go to that prison guard two hours before sundown?”
“Oh yes. He was as friendly as ever he could be, just because he found that I was fond of fishing, and lent me his rod and line and flies that he made himself, and told me the best places to go to, and he was as pleased as I was when I came back to the prison with a dozen and a half of little trout. Oh, I remember so well almost every word he said.”
“Well, what did he say?” cried Rodd eagerly.
“Oh, he was a good-humoured droll fellow, though he looked so gruff, for when I showed him my fish he slapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Well done, young ’un! You are one of the right sort after all.’ And then he told me to take the fish into his quarters, and his missus, as he called her, would cook them for me so that I could take them to my sick father; and when I thanked him he said it was all right, and that he and his ‘missus’ had been talking together about how bad the French captain looked, and that I had better get him a nice little dish like that as often as I could.”
Morny stopped again, and Rodd gazed at him impatiently.
“Here, I say,” he cried, “what a tantalising sort of chap you are! Why, I could tell a story better than you.”
“Why, I have told you the story,” said Morny.
“No, you haven’t. You keep stopping short when you come to what interests me most.”
“Nonsense! You don’t want me to go on telling you about catching more fish and getting them fried day after day, and about taking them up to my father.”
“What do you know about it?” cried Rodd. “It’s just what I do want you to tell me. Did he like them and eat them, and did they do him good? Those are the best bits.”
“You are a droll of boy,” said Morny, laughing.
“I’m a what?” cried Rodd.
“Droll of boy—drôle de garçon. C’est juste, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oh, if you like,” cried Rodd merrily; “but if you don’t think those are the best parts of the story, which are?”
“Ah!” said Morny thoughtfully. “The part that I remember most is feeling that somehow things are not always so black as they look, that Dartmoor was not such a dreary desert, and that the fierce frowning guards were not so hard and unpleasant as they seemed. There were times after that when I was very happy there, for my father’s wound began to get better, and I found myself strong and well again. But after a time there was a new governor there, who behaved very harshly to the prisoners, and as we got well the great longing for freedom used to grow within us, and some of the men tried to escape. This made the governor more harsh and stern. We were kept more shut up—”
“And I suppose that made you long all the more to get free?”
“Of course,” replied Morny; “and at last there came a time when we heard a little news from across the sea—news which seemed to make my father the Count half wild with longing, and one day he told me that he had had a lot of napoleons sent to him to help him to escape, and that the first fine day we were allowed out for exercise upon the moor we would make a dash for liberty.”
“You should have done it when you were out fishing,” said Rodd.
“Oh no. The fishing had been stopped for a long time—ever since the first attempts had been made to escape.”
“Oh, I see,” said Rodd.
“And at last the day came,” continued Morny, “and we made our attempt, but only to find that we were very closely guarded, and that soldiers were on the look-out in all directions; and in the attempt my father and I became separated, and I should have been taken if it had not been that—”
“Look here,” cried Rodd, springing up, “there’s Joe Cross signalling to me from the maintop. He can see something. I say, that happened luckily for you, young fellow, for you were just getting on to dangerous ground.”
Chapter Thirty Two.Land Ho!“What is it, Joe?” cried Rodd.“Easy, sir!” said the man softly. “Not too loud,” he continued, from where he was seated upon the cross-trees. “I don’t want to give the skipper a false alarm, else he won’t believe me next time.”“What about?”“Easy, my lad! Just in a whisper like. I aren’t sure, but to you I says, Land ho!”“Whereabouts, Joe?” cried Rodd excitedly.“Ah!” cried Morny, springing up. “Land!” And he faced round to gaze towards the brig that was sailing very slowly after them some three hundred yards away—sailing, but doing little more than forge her way through the water.“Nay, not that way, sir,” said Joe softly, “but doo east. You can’t see anything from down there, Mr Rodd, sir. I can’t even make certain with the glass.”“Hold hard, Joe! I am coming up,” cried Rodd. “All right, sir; but you will be disappointed when you do.”“I won’t be long, Morny,” said Rodd eagerly.“No; be quick,” whispered Morny excitedly. “I want for my father to know. He is so anxious about the brig.”Rodd gave him a quick jerk of the head as he went on climbing the ratlines as quickly as he could, forgetting all about the heat and the silvery glare of the piercing sunshine.He was not long mounting to the sailor’s side, seating himself on the opposite side of the mast.“Now then,” he cried, as he shuffled into his place; “let me look.”“All right, sir. Ketch hold,” replied the sailor stolidly. “You’ll do it; your eyes are so much younger and sharper than mine.”“None of your gammon, Joe!” cried the boy sharply, as he focussed the glass to suit his eyes, while with one arm embracing the butt of the main-topgallant-mast he held the tube steadily to his eye, asking for guidance the while.“Now then,” he said; “whereabouts?”“Right straight ahead, sir. You can’t miss it if it’s there, for it stretches away as far as you like to left and right!”“Why, there’s no land, Joe.”“Not looking down low enough, sir, perhaps. It aren’t right up in the sky.”“Well, who’s looking up in the sky?” cried Rodd irritably.—“I am looking right down to the horizon line.”“Well, that’s right, sir. Take a good long look. Now then, can’t you see it?”There was silence for a few moments, and Morny, who was gazing upwards, seemed to be all eyes and ears.“Can’t you see it, Master Rodd?” repeated Joe.“No.”“Perhaps ’tarn’t land, then, sir.”“No. It was all your fancy. There’s nothing to be seen.”“Where are you looking, sir?”“At a little low bank of pale misty cloud. That’s all, Joe. Your eyes want a good rub.”“Dessay they do, sir. They aren’t much account,” said the man; “but that caps what I saw,” and putting his hands to the sides of his mouth he yelled out in stentorian tones, “Land ho!”—a signal that was followed by the hurried shuffling sound of feet ascending to the deck.“Here, what are you doing?” cried Rodd angrily. “Spreading a false alarm like that!”“Oh, it’s right enough, sir.”“But there’s nothing but a cloud there, Joe.”“Looks like it, sir, but land it is all the same.”“Where away?” came in the skipper’s hoarse voice.“Dead ahead, sir,” replied the sailor, and Rodd steadied the glass again, bringing it to bear upon what looked more than ever like the faintest of faint hazes upon the surface of the distant sea.“Can you make it out, Rodd?” cried Uncle Paul, who had hurried on deck with the Count.“Well, I can just see something, uncle, and I suppose it’s land.”“Oh, that’s right enough, my lad,” cried the captain. “Can’t be anything else.”“Not clouds?”“Ah, I don’t say that,” cried the skipper. “You may see a bit of haze too, but there’s solid land beneath. There, sir,” continued the skipper, “that’s what we are looking for. Now the next thing we want to see is water.”“Well, we can see that plainly enough, Joe,” said Rodd, speaking with his eyes still to the glass.“Ay, but he means dirty water, sir.”“What do you want to see dirty water for?”“Muddy, then, sir, showing as there’s a river coming out there. I say, sir, wouldn’t t’other young gent like to come up and have a squint?”“Oh, of course. I forgot. Below there! Morny! Come on up and have a look.”The lad sprang to the main shrouds and began to hurry up, while Joe Cross, who had finished the task to achieve which he had been sent, began to lower himself down, leaving space for the young Frenchman, to whom the glass was handed in turn, ready for him to declare that he could make out the distant land.“Ah,” he panted, as he handed back the glass, “how I have longed to see that! Now, Rodd, we shall soon get the brig careened over and the leaks repaired, and then—”“Well,” said Rodd, “what then?”“Be off to sea again,” cried Morny excitedly.“Well, you seem in a precious hurry,” grumbled Rodd.“Wouldn’t you be if your schooner was like our brig?”“No. Uncle and I are reckoning upon making a lot of discoveries ashore. If you are on a scientific expedition, wouldn’t that do as well for you?”“No,” replied the French lad shortly. “We must follow out our researches by sea.”“Then what is it you are looking for? I thought you were going to tell me the other day.”“Yes, my father,” cried Morny, answering a hail from below. “I am coming down.”When the two lads descended it was to find that the Count had been speaking to the skipper, who had given orders for the schooner’s boat to be lowered so that the two visitors could return at once to the brig, with the understanding that both vessels were to send up studding sails and use every possible speed now to get within touch of the shore, before making south and keeping a bright look-out for some estuary or river mouth.“You will follow me, sir,” said the skipper; “but do you know what this coast line will be like?”“I cannot say I do,” replied the Count. “Cliff and hill, with mountains farther in?”“Nay, sir; all muddy shore, covered with dark green mangrove forest. I don’t suppose we shall be long before I send you up a signal; and then we can sail right in. There will be nothing to mind in the way of rocks, for where I lead it will be all mud.”Very shortly afterwards the lads parted, and as Rodd stood looking after the boat that was bearing their two visitors to the brig, Uncle Paul came up close behind him.“Pity those two were born Frenchmen, Rodd, my boy,” said the doctor, “for there is something very gentlemanly about the Count, and I like that lad Morny too. There is something about him, Rodney, that you might very well copy.”“Is there, uncle?”“Yes, sir, there is. Certainly. I am not your father, but I am your uncle, and it gratifies me very much to see the polished, almost reverent way in which that lad behaves towards the Count. It’s polite, and it’s respectful, and it’s—er—it’s—er—”“Why, you wouldn’t like it, uncle, if I were to behave to you just as he does to the Count.”“Well, not exactly, Rodney, but there’s something very nice about it. Great pity, though, that they are French, and so corroded, so crusted over, as I may call it, with a sort of hero-worship for that tyrannical usurper. There, I won’t mention his name.”“That’s right, uncle; don’t, please.”“Why, sir?”“Because it always makes you so cross, uncle.”“Now, Rodney, that’s what I don’t like. If I have an antipathy to a scoundrel, and speak out firmly as an Englishman should, it is not for a boy like you to say I am cross; and I am quite sure that young Morny would have had too much common-sense to speak out like that to his father. It is a great pity, though, that they are both, as I say, so eaten up with that hero-worship, and I am very much afraid that I spoke a little too plainly to the Count to-day. It was rather unfortunate too. It was just when we had been having a very interesting conversation upon the medusae, especially those of a phosphorescent nature. By the way, has Morny said much to you about the object of their research?”“No, uncle. He always seems disinclined to speak.”“Humph! Yes, he does seem very reticent. His father as good as said, as I think I told you, that this was a voyage of discovery, a search for something he wanted to take back, and which was to make his country very great. But he has never said what, and it would be so very ungentlemanly to seem curious.”“But you do feel curious to know, don’t you, uncle?”“Well, I must confess, my boy, that I do—a little jealous, perhaps, of another man’s success, for I did learn as much as this, that he felt pretty sure of being successful if he could get the brig sound again. Well, I suppose we shall know some day.”“I don’t like to say any more to Morny, uncle. It would seem so small; and besides, he never questions me anything about what we are doing—only seems very much interested.”“You are quite right, Rodd. It would be mean and petty. Leave it to them, and if they like to take us into their confidence, well and good. If they do not, well, it is no business of ours.”“Why, uncle,” cried Rodd suddenly, and then he stopped. “It isn’t because—”Rodd stopped short again, looking straight away over the sea, as if in deep thought.“Well, my boy? It isn’t because what?”“Oh, I don’t like to say, uncle. You would laugh at me.”“How do you know that? Wait and see,” cried Uncle Paul. “Now then, what were you thinking?”“I was wondering whether they could be trying to discover that which we found quite by accident.”“That which we found quite by accident, Pickle?”“Yes, uncle, and that may be the reason why they don’t like to talk about it. You see, all ships’ captains and people have been so laughed at, and told that they are inventing fables, that they are very quiet and like to keep things to themselves, just the same as Captain Chubb was when we saw that thing. You see, uncle—”“Go on, Pickle! Go on!” cried Uncle Paul.“Oh, I haven’t much more to say, uncle, only this—if ordinary captains are so particular about speaking, and so afraid of ridicule, wouldn’t a big scientific man like the Count, who has fitted out an expedition for the discovery, be very careful too, lest the object of his voyage should get about? But oh, nonsense! It’s ridiculous. It can’t be that. Don’t laugh at me, uncle. It’s only what I thought.”“I was not going to laugh at you, Rodney, my boy,” said the doctor quietly, “for the simple reason that I do not see anything to laugh at. It’s a very clever, good idea, and quite possible. Yes, my boy, it’s more than possible. I don’t say that you are right, but very likely to be. The Count and his son are French, and, like their countrymen, very touchy and sensitive and afraid of ridicule. I shouldn’t be at all surprised, my boy, if that really is the reason for their being so secretive in their ways.”“I am glad you think so, uncle,” cried the boy.“No, no, no; don’t take it like that. It may be after all only a fancy of yours.”“Yes, uncle, but if that’s what they are searching for, to prove that there are such—such—er—what-you-may-call-’ems in the sea—”“Phenomena, boy—phenomena,” said the doctor shortly.“Yes, uncle; phenomena—wouldn’t it be an act of kindness to tell them that we have already made the discovery, and try to show them the part of the ocean where such creatures are to be found?”“Hum! No, my boy. No. We should be making matters worse. Not only should we be showing the Count and his son that we have found out what they want to keep secret, but we should be robbing them of the honour of their discovery as well. No; let them take us into their confidence if they like, and if they do, so much the better. If they do not—well, the loss is theirs.”
“What is it, Joe?” cried Rodd.
“Easy, sir!” said the man softly. “Not too loud,” he continued, from where he was seated upon the cross-trees. “I don’t want to give the skipper a false alarm, else he won’t believe me next time.”
“What about?”
“Easy, my lad! Just in a whisper like. I aren’t sure, but to you I says, Land ho!”
“Whereabouts, Joe?” cried Rodd excitedly.
“Ah!” cried Morny, springing up. “Land!” And he faced round to gaze towards the brig that was sailing very slowly after them some three hundred yards away—sailing, but doing little more than forge her way through the water.
“Nay, not that way, sir,” said Joe softly, “but doo east. You can’t see anything from down there, Mr Rodd, sir. I can’t even make certain with the glass.”
“Hold hard, Joe! I am coming up,” cried Rodd. “All right, sir; but you will be disappointed when you do.”
“I won’t be long, Morny,” said Rodd eagerly.
“No; be quick,” whispered Morny excitedly. “I want for my father to know. He is so anxious about the brig.”
Rodd gave him a quick jerk of the head as he went on climbing the ratlines as quickly as he could, forgetting all about the heat and the silvery glare of the piercing sunshine.
He was not long mounting to the sailor’s side, seating himself on the opposite side of the mast.
“Now then,” he cried, as he shuffled into his place; “let me look.”
“All right, sir. Ketch hold,” replied the sailor stolidly. “You’ll do it; your eyes are so much younger and sharper than mine.”
“None of your gammon, Joe!” cried the boy sharply, as he focussed the glass to suit his eyes, while with one arm embracing the butt of the main-topgallant-mast he held the tube steadily to his eye, asking for guidance the while.
“Now then,” he said; “whereabouts?”
“Right straight ahead, sir. You can’t miss it if it’s there, for it stretches away as far as you like to left and right!”
“Why, there’s no land, Joe.”
“Not looking down low enough, sir, perhaps. It aren’t right up in the sky.”
“Well, who’s looking up in the sky?” cried Rodd irritably.—“I am looking right down to the horizon line.”
“Well, that’s right, sir. Take a good long look. Now then, can’t you see it?”
There was silence for a few moments, and Morny, who was gazing upwards, seemed to be all eyes and ears.
“Can’t you see it, Master Rodd?” repeated Joe.
“No.”
“Perhaps ’tarn’t land, then, sir.”
“No. It was all your fancy. There’s nothing to be seen.”
“Where are you looking, sir?”
“At a little low bank of pale misty cloud. That’s all, Joe. Your eyes want a good rub.”
“Dessay they do, sir. They aren’t much account,” said the man; “but that caps what I saw,” and putting his hands to the sides of his mouth he yelled out in stentorian tones, “Land ho!”—a signal that was followed by the hurried shuffling sound of feet ascending to the deck.
“Here, what are you doing?” cried Rodd angrily. “Spreading a false alarm like that!”
“Oh, it’s right enough, sir.”
“But there’s nothing but a cloud there, Joe.”
“Looks like it, sir, but land it is all the same.”
“Where away?” came in the skipper’s hoarse voice.
“Dead ahead, sir,” replied the sailor, and Rodd steadied the glass again, bringing it to bear upon what looked more than ever like the faintest of faint hazes upon the surface of the distant sea.
“Can you make it out, Rodd?” cried Uncle Paul, who had hurried on deck with the Count.
“Well, I can just see something, uncle, and I suppose it’s land.”
“Oh, that’s right enough, my lad,” cried the captain. “Can’t be anything else.”
“Not clouds?”
“Ah, I don’t say that,” cried the skipper. “You may see a bit of haze too, but there’s solid land beneath. There, sir,” continued the skipper, “that’s what we are looking for. Now the next thing we want to see is water.”
“Well, we can see that plainly enough, Joe,” said Rodd, speaking with his eyes still to the glass.
“Ay, but he means dirty water, sir.”
“What do you want to see dirty water for?”
“Muddy, then, sir, showing as there’s a river coming out there. I say, sir, wouldn’t t’other young gent like to come up and have a squint?”
“Oh, of course. I forgot. Below there! Morny! Come on up and have a look.”
The lad sprang to the main shrouds and began to hurry up, while Joe Cross, who had finished the task to achieve which he had been sent, began to lower himself down, leaving space for the young Frenchman, to whom the glass was handed in turn, ready for him to declare that he could make out the distant land.
“Ah,” he panted, as he handed back the glass, “how I have longed to see that! Now, Rodd, we shall soon get the brig careened over and the leaks repaired, and then—”
“Well,” said Rodd, “what then?”
“Be off to sea again,” cried Morny excitedly.
“Well, you seem in a precious hurry,” grumbled Rodd.
“Wouldn’t you be if your schooner was like our brig?”
“No. Uncle and I are reckoning upon making a lot of discoveries ashore. If you are on a scientific expedition, wouldn’t that do as well for you?”
“No,” replied the French lad shortly. “We must follow out our researches by sea.”
“Then what is it you are looking for? I thought you were going to tell me the other day.”
“Yes, my father,” cried Morny, answering a hail from below. “I am coming down.”
When the two lads descended it was to find that the Count had been speaking to the skipper, who had given orders for the schooner’s boat to be lowered so that the two visitors could return at once to the brig, with the understanding that both vessels were to send up studding sails and use every possible speed now to get within touch of the shore, before making south and keeping a bright look-out for some estuary or river mouth.
“You will follow me, sir,” said the skipper; “but do you know what this coast line will be like?”
“I cannot say I do,” replied the Count. “Cliff and hill, with mountains farther in?”
“Nay, sir; all muddy shore, covered with dark green mangrove forest. I don’t suppose we shall be long before I send you up a signal; and then we can sail right in. There will be nothing to mind in the way of rocks, for where I lead it will be all mud.”
Very shortly afterwards the lads parted, and as Rodd stood looking after the boat that was bearing their two visitors to the brig, Uncle Paul came up close behind him.
“Pity those two were born Frenchmen, Rodd, my boy,” said the doctor, “for there is something very gentlemanly about the Count, and I like that lad Morny too. There is something about him, Rodney, that you might very well copy.”
“Is there, uncle?”
“Yes, sir, there is. Certainly. I am not your father, but I am your uncle, and it gratifies me very much to see the polished, almost reverent way in which that lad behaves towards the Count. It’s polite, and it’s respectful, and it’s—er—it’s—er—”
“Why, you wouldn’t like it, uncle, if I were to behave to you just as he does to the Count.”
“Well, not exactly, Rodney, but there’s something very nice about it. Great pity, though, that they are French, and so corroded, so crusted over, as I may call it, with a sort of hero-worship for that tyrannical usurper. There, I won’t mention his name.”
“That’s right, uncle; don’t, please.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because it always makes you so cross, uncle.”
“Now, Rodney, that’s what I don’t like. If I have an antipathy to a scoundrel, and speak out firmly as an Englishman should, it is not for a boy like you to say I am cross; and I am quite sure that young Morny would have had too much common-sense to speak out like that to his father. It is a great pity, though, that they are both, as I say, so eaten up with that hero-worship, and I am very much afraid that I spoke a little too plainly to the Count to-day. It was rather unfortunate too. It was just when we had been having a very interesting conversation upon the medusae, especially those of a phosphorescent nature. By the way, has Morny said much to you about the object of their research?”
“No, uncle. He always seems disinclined to speak.”
“Humph! Yes, he does seem very reticent. His father as good as said, as I think I told you, that this was a voyage of discovery, a search for something he wanted to take back, and which was to make his country very great. But he has never said what, and it would be so very ungentlemanly to seem curious.”
“But you do feel curious to know, don’t you, uncle?”
“Well, I must confess, my boy, that I do—a little jealous, perhaps, of another man’s success, for I did learn as much as this, that he felt pretty sure of being successful if he could get the brig sound again. Well, I suppose we shall know some day.”
“I don’t like to say any more to Morny, uncle. It would seem so small; and besides, he never questions me anything about what we are doing—only seems very much interested.”
“You are quite right, Rodd. It would be mean and petty. Leave it to them, and if they like to take us into their confidence, well and good. If they do not, well, it is no business of ours.”
“Why, uncle,” cried Rodd suddenly, and then he stopped. “It isn’t because—”
Rodd stopped short again, looking straight away over the sea, as if in deep thought.
“Well, my boy? It isn’t because what?”
“Oh, I don’t like to say, uncle. You would laugh at me.”
“How do you know that? Wait and see,” cried Uncle Paul. “Now then, what were you thinking?”
“I was wondering whether they could be trying to discover that which we found quite by accident.”
“That which we found quite by accident, Pickle?”
“Yes, uncle, and that may be the reason why they don’t like to talk about it. You see, all ships’ captains and people have been so laughed at, and told that they are inventing fables, that they are very quiet and like to keep things to themselves, just the same as Captain Chubb was when we saw that thing. You see, uncle—”
“Go on, Pickle! Go on!” cried Uncle Paul.
“Oh, I haven’t much more to say, uncle, only this—if ordinary captains are so particular about speaking, and so afraid of ridicule, wouldn’t a big scientific man like the Count, who has fitted out an expedition for the discovery, be very careful too, lest the object of his voyage should get about? But oh, nonsense! It’s ridiculous. It can’t be that. Don’t laugh at me, uncle. It’s only what I thought.”
“I was not going to laugh at you, Rodney, my boy,” said the doctor quietly, “for the simple reason that I do not see anything to laugh at. It’s a very clever, good idea, and quite possible. Yes, my boy, it’s more than possible. I don’t say that you are right, but very likely to be. The Count and his son are French, and, like their countrymen, very touchy and sensitive and afraid of ridicule. I shouldn’t be at all surprised, my boy, if that really is the reason for their being so secretive in their ways.”
“I am glad you think so, uncle,” cried the boy.
“No, no, no; don’t take it like that. It may be after all only a fancy of yours.”
“Yes, uncle, but if that’s what they are searching for, to prove that there are such—such—er—what-you-may-call-’ems in the sea—”
“Phenomena, boy—phenomena,” said the doctor shortly.
“Yes, uncle; phenomena—wouldn’t it be an act of kindness to tell them that we have already made the discovery, and try to show them the part of the ocean where such creatures are to be found?”
“Hum! No, my boy. No. We should be making matters worse. Not only should we be showing the Count and his son that we have found out what they want to keep secret, but we should be robbing them of the honour of their discovery as well. No; let them take us into their confidence if they like, and if they do, so much the better. If they do not—well, the loss is theirs.”
Chapter Thirty Three.Coast Land.“Our skipper’s as right as can be, Morny,” said Rodd the next evening, as the lad was once more on board the schooner, and they were sailing gently along about a mile from shore, the brig following pretty close behind with the water streaming down from her scuppers as the work at one of the pumps was still kept up.For there was the coast, much as he had described, an undulating line of the singular dark green mangrove forest that looked low and dwarfed, and, now that the tide was low, showed to full advantage, the singular ramification of its roots giving the bushy forest the appearance of standing up upon a wilderness of jagged and tangled scaffolding through which the sea washed over the muddy shore.“Not pleasant-looking, gentlemen,” said the skipper, coming up to them. “Not the sort of place where you would like to settle down and build a country house.”“Why, it’s horrible,” cried Rodd. “But why should it be so muddy here, instead of being all nice clean sand?”“Because it’s the edge of a low swampy country, my lad, where great rivers come from inland and bring down the soil of thousands of miles.”“But I always thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions were roving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo and places like that.”“Yes, my lad,” said the skipper; “but that’s the Africa of the old books, and there’s plenty of it like that on the east side and up in the north and where old Mungo Park went to, no doubt; but all along this coast it isn’t a dry and thirsty land, but as soon as you get through the mangroves, full of great forests and big rivers. Why, look at the sea here. Right away out it was all as clear as crystal; now here there’s mud enough for anything.”“But we shan’t want to stop long in a muddy river with banks like this, captain,” said Morny.“Don’t you be in too great a hurry to judge, sir,” said the skipper. “I have sailed up one or two of these rivers in my time, and when you get higher up you will find it very different: big forests with grand trees, rivers with fine water, and places beautiful enough for anything, such as will satisfy travellers who don’t want ports and towns. You and the doctor, Mr Rodd, will be able to get some fine shooting up there, if you like, and fine fishing too. Do you want to get any birds of all the colours of the rainbow?”“Why, of course!” cried Rodd eagerly.“Well, there you’ll find them, sir—singing birds too, green and gold and scarlet and grey, and some with long tails, and some with short. Only,” continued the skipper dryly, and with a grim smile at the two lads, “they don’t sing like our birds at home, but in a foreign lingo, all squeak and scream and squawk, through their having crooked hook beaks. They are what people at home call parrots and parakeets.”“Oh, that’s what you mean!” cried Rodd, laughing.“Of course, sir—them as you teaches to talk. Wicked ’uns, some of them, ready enough to learn anything the sailors teach them, but sulky as slugs when you want them to learn anything good.”“But there are plenty of them, captain?” said Rodd.“Thicker than crows at home, sir. Then what do you say to monkeys?”“That I should like to see them alive in the forest.”“Well, there you have them, sir; and you could come across plenty, if you went far enough, big as boys.”“Ah, now you are telling travellers’ tales, captain,” said Rodd.“Nay, my lad, not I. I have seen them as big as boys, only not so tall, because their legs have all gone into arms. Little, short, crooked legs, they have got, as makes them squatty. But when they stand up their arms are so long that they nearly touch the ground. Big as boys? Why, they are bigger! I never saw boys with such big heads. And they all look as if they had been born old; wrinkled faces and long shaggy black hair.”“Now, look here, captain, I don’t mind you joking me, but don’t play tricks with the Viscount here.”“Not I, my lad. I am just telling you the honest truth, and you may believe me.”“But where’s the river where these things are?”“We shall come across one of them before long, sir,” said the skipper. “I expected to have found one that suited my book hours ago. I was very nearly going up that one just about dinner-time.”“Oh, but that was only a little inlet,” said Rodd.“Looked so to you, sir, but all along here the shore’s full of inlets, as you call them; but they are deep water and go winding in and out, and perhaps open out into big sheets of water like lagoons, as they call them. But I am of opinion that if we don’t turn into one to-night we shall do so some time to-morrow, and perhaps find just the sort of spot we want. It we don’t we will go a bit farther south.”“But take us up beyond all this horrible mangrove swamp,” said Rodd.“You leave that to me, sir,” said the skipper. “We have got a good bit of work to do with that brig, and I want to bring my lads out again, and the Count’s too, well and hearty, not half of them eaten up with fever and t’other half sucked into dry skins by the mosquitoes. No, we shall have to sail right up to where it gets to be a forest and park-like country.”“There’ll be no towns?” said Rodd.“No, sir, but we might come across a blacks’ village, and if we do we can anchor somewhere on the other shore.”Another afternoon had come before the mangrove forest seemed to turn inland and run right up the country, just as if they had come to the end of that portion of the land; but miles away the skipper pointed out that the forest began again and also swept inland, while by using the glass the lads were able to trace the configuration of the coast, and saw that the two lines of coast north and south came together away east.“There,” said the skipper, “what do you say to this for the mouth of a big river?”“River?” said the doctor, coming up.“Yes, sir—or estuary, which you like. This is the sort of one that will suit us, though as far as I can make out it is not down in my chart. So all the more likely to suit our book.”“But do you think it’s a river, and not a bend of the coast?” asked the doctor.“If it was a bend of the coast, sir, the tide wouldn’t be flowing in like that. It’s a good-sized tidal river, sir, and we are going to sail in as far as we can get before dark, and if all turns out as I expect, we shall be carried in past the mangroves and be able to moor to-night perhaps to forest trees.”“And if we don’t?” said Rodd.“Why, then we shall anchor, and find plenty of good holding ground.”The tide carried them in rapidly, and a nice soft breeze filled the sails, bearing them onward till the mangrove swamp on either hand began to close in rapidly, while towards evening they were gliding where the banks were about a mile apart, and just at sunset muddy patches began to make their appearance, upon which Rodd noticed three times over, portions of the rugged trunks of trees that had been denuded of every branch as they floated down with the stream.All at once, just where the mud glistened ruddily in the rays of the setting sun, Rodd started, for a thick stumpy tree trunk suddenly began to move gently, then glided a few feet over the mud, and finally went into the river with a tremendous splash.“Why, what’s that?” cried Rodd excitedly.“Croc,” grunted the skipper gruffly. “Thousands of them along here.”
“Our skipper’s as right as can be, Morny,” said Rodd the next evening, as the lad was once more on board the schooner, and they were sailing gently along about a mile from shore, the brig following pretty close behind with the water streaming down from her scuppers as the work at one of the pumps was still kept up.
For there was the coast, much as he had described, an undulating line of the singular dark green mangrove forest that looked low and dwarfed, and, now that the tide was low, showed to full advantage, the singular ramification of its roots giving the bushy forest the appearance of standing up upon a wilderness of jagged and tangled scaffolding through which the sea washed over the muddy shore.
“Not pleasant-looking, gentlemen,” said the skipper, coming up to them. “Not the sort of place where you would like to settle down and build a country house.”
“Why, it’s horrible,” cried Rodd. “But why should it be so muddy here, instead of being all nice clean sand?”
“Because it’s the edge of a low swampy country, my lad, where great rivers come from inland and bring down the soil of thousands of miles.”
“But I always thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions were roving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo and places like that.”
“Yes, my lad,” said the skipper; “but that’s the Africa of the old books, and there’s plenty of it like that on the east side and up in the north and where old Mungo Park went to, no doubt; but all along this coast it isn’t a dry and thirsty land, but as soon as you get through the mangroves, full of great forests and big rivers. Why, look at the sea here. Right away out it was all as clear as crystal; now here there’s mud enough for anything.”
“But we shan’t want to stop long in a muddy river with banks like this, captain,” said Morny.
“Don’t you be in too great a hurry to judge, sir,” said the skipper. “I have sailed up one or two of these rivers in my time, and when you get higher up you will find it very different: big forests with grand trees, rivers with fine water, and places beautiful enough for anything, such as will satisfy travellers who don’t want ports and towns. You and the doctor, Mr Rodd, will be able to get some fine shooting up there, if you like, and fine fishing too. Do you want to get any birds of all the colours of the rainbow?”
“Why, of course!” cried Rodd eagerly.
“Well, there you’ll find them, sir—singing birds too, green and gold and scarlet and grey, and some with long tails, and some with short. Only,” continued the skipper dryly, and with a grim smile at the two lads, “they don’t sing like our birds at home, but in a foreign lingo, all squeak and scream and squawk, through their having crooked hook beaks. They are what people at home call parrots and parakeets.”
“Oh, that’s what you mean!” cried Rodd, laughing.
“Of course, sir—them as you teaches to talk. Wicked ’uns, some of them, ready enough to learn anything the sailors teach them, but sulky as slugs when you want them to learn anything good.”
“But there are plenty of them, captain?” said Rodd.
“Thicker than crows at home, sir. Then what do you say to monkeys?”
“That I should like to see them alive in the forest.”
“Well, there you have them, sir; and you could come across plenty, if you went far enough, big as boys.”
“Ah, now you are telling travellers’ tales, captain,” said Rodd.
“Nay, my lad, not I. I have seen them as big as boys, only not so tall, because their legs have all gone into arms. Little, short, crooked legs, they have got, as makes them squatty. But when they stand up their arms are so long that they nearly touch the ground. Big as boys? Why, they are bigger! I never saw boys with such big heads. And they all look as if they had been born old; wrinkled faces and long shaggy black hair.”
“Now, look here, captain, I don’t mind you joking me, but don’t play tricks with the Viscount here.”
“Not I, my lad. I am just telling you the honest truth, and you may believe me.”
“But where’s the river where these things are?”
“We shall come across one of them before long, sir,” said the skipper. “I expected to have found one that suited my book hours ago. I was very nearly going up that one just about dinner-time.”
“Oh, but that was only a little inlet,” said Rodd.
“Looked so to you, sir, but all along here the shore’s full of inlets, as you call them; but they are deep water and go winding in and out, and perhaps open out into big sheets of water like lagoons, as they call them. But I am of opinion that if we don’t turn into one to-night we shall do so some time to-morrow, and perhaps find just the sort of spot we want. It we don’t we will go a bit farther south.”
“But take us up beyond all this horrible mangrove swamp,” said Rodd.
“You leave that to me, sir,” said the skipper. “We have got a good bit of work to do with that brig, and I want to bring my lads out again, and the Count’s too, well and hearty, not half of them eaten up with fever and t’other half sucked into dry skins by the mosquitoes. No, we shall have to sail right up to where it gets to be a forest and park-like country.”
“There’ll be no towns?” said Rodd.
“No, sir, but we might come across a blacks’ village, and if we do we can anchor somewhere on the other shore.”
Another afternoon had come before the mangrove forest seemed to turn inland and run right up the country, just as if they had come to the end of that portion of the land; but miles away the skipper pointed out that the forest began again and also swept inland, while by using the glass the lads were able to trace the configuration of the coast, and saw that the two lines of coast north and south came together away east.
“There,” said the skipper, “what do you say to this for the mouth of a big river?”
“River?” said the doctor, coming up.
“Yes, sir—or estuary, which you like. This is the sort of one that will suit us, though as far as I can make out it is not down in my chart. So all the more likely to suit our book.”
“But do you think it’s a river, and not a bend of the coast?” asked the doctor.
“If it was a bend of the coast, sir, the tide wouldn’t be flowing in like that. It’s a good-sized tidal river, sir, and we are going to sail in as far as we can get before dark, and if all turns out as I expect, we shall be carried in past the mangroves and be able to moor to-night perhaps to forest trees.”
“And if we don’t?” said Rodd.
“Why, then we shall anchor, and find plenty of good holding ground.”
The tide carried them in rapidly, and a nice soft breeze filled the sails, bearing them onward till the mangrove swamp on either hand began to close in rapidly, while towards evening they were gliding where the banks were about a mile apart, and just at sunset muddy patches began to make their appearance, upon which Rodd noticed three times over, portions of the rugged trunks of trees that had been denuded of every branch as they floated down with the stream.
All at once, just where the mud glistened ruddily in the rays of the setting sun, Rodd started, for a thick stumpy tree trunk suddenly began to move gently, then glided a few feet over the mud, and finally went into the river with a tremendous splash.
“Why, what’s that?” cried Rodd excitedly.
“Croc,” grunted the skipper gruffly. “Thousands of them along here.”