CHAPTER XV
The Old Sailor
Having concluded this verse, the strange old man elevated one arm above his head and danced a couple of steps of a sailor's hornpipe. In the middle of this he caught sight of the boys, and came to an abrupt stop.
"Ahoy!" he shouted.
"Ahoy!" cried Chet promptly.
The man in the straw hat advanced.
"When did you come ashore?"
"Just this morning."
The old man drew closer. He was an odd figure, in the flopping straw hat, with oilskins much too big for him, and as he came up to the mouth of the cave he looked closely at the lads, then smiled and extended his hand.
"I'm Captain Royal," he announced. "You should have saluted, but I guess you didn't know."
To make up for this breach of etiquette, the boys saluted, and this appeared to gratify the old gentleman immensely.
"You're landlubbers, eh?"
"I suppose so," admitted Frank, with a smile.
"Well, we can't all be sailors. It isn't often people come to see me."
"Do you live here?" asked Joe, indicating the cave.
"This is where I live when I'm ashore. I'm resting up between cruises just now."
The old man sat down on the sand and fanned himself with the straw hat, for it was a warm morning and the sun was strong. The boys looked at him curiously. In spite of his garb, he did not look like a sea-faring man; his skin was tanned, it is true, but it was not the deep, mahogany tan of one who has lived for years in many climes. His voice was high-pitched and his expression was mild. But the boys were old enough to know that one cannot always judge by appearances.
"What are your names?" asked the old man.
The lads introduced themselves.
"Glad to meet you," returned Captain Royal. "It ain't often I have visitors. I get used to being alone."
"It's lonely enough here," agreed Frank.
"It isn't bad. Not half as lonely as the time I got marooned in the South Seas."
The boys looked at him with new interest.
"You were marooned?"
"Aye. It was when I was in charge of a destroyer cruising the South Seas a good many years ago. We landed for water on a little island that you won't find on any of the maps. It was a hot day—very hot. Must have been over a hundred degrees in the shade. So while my men were loading the water on my boat I sat down in the shade of a cactus tree. Before I knew it, I was asleep."
"And they went away and left you?"
"They did."
"But you were the captain!"
"I guess they thought I was in my cabin, and of course none of 'em dared disturb me. When I woke up, the ship was gone."
"Gosh!" exclaimed Biff.
"Well, sir, I didn't know what to do. I was like this here fellow Robinson Crusoe, that you read about. But I had to make the best of it, so I fixed myself up a little house and I lived there for nearly six months, all by myself."
"Didn't the boat come back for you?"
"They couldn't find the island again. It wasn't marked on the maps. The engineer couldn't set a course back to the island. Anyway, the quartermaster who took charge of the schooner after they found I was gone, didn't want to find me, I guess. He wanted my job."
"How did you find anything to eat when you were on the island?"
"Oh, there was lots to eat. Cocoanuts and prunes and bananas and grapefruit and figs and all sorts of fruit. There was plenty of mud-turtles on the island, so I had mock turtle soup whenever I wanted it. I tell you, I lived high. Once in a while I had my little troubles, of course, and two or three times I had some mighty narrow escapes. There was a rhinoceros came after me once."
"A rhinoceros!"
"Aye! He swam up to the island one day. I was just in for my morning swim when I saw his big ears flapping and heard him give a roar. I tell you, I was scared. He came surging through the waves and up on the beach and he chased me clean up a pineapple tree. I had to stay there for three days until he went away, and I had nothing but pineapples to eat. I was never so sick of pineapples in my life. I've never been able to eat one since."
Frank glanced at his brother. He was beginning to suspect that Captain Royal was having some fun at their expense. The old man rattled on.
"The rhinoceros finally swam out to sea again and I was able to come down. I lived on that island for half a year, hoping that my warship would come back, but it never did. So I made myself a raft and loaded it up with water and fruit and finally sailed away. It took me more than a month of steady sailing before I finally reached land off the coast of South America. By jing, I was glad when I saw the Andes Mountains again. I landed at a port where there was a ship, and I'm swizzled if it wasn't my own boat."
"Your own boat!"
"Yes sir. I could hardly believe my eyes. So I come on board, and they were going to throw me off."
"Why?" asked Chet, in surprise.
"They didn't know me. You see, I hadn't been able to shave when I was on the island, and I'd grown a beard. So nobody knew me and they wouldn't believe me when I said I was their captain. But I told them to lend me a pair of scissors and a razor and I took off that beard and stepped out on deck, and by jing they all saluted me then, I can tell you. I made the quartermaster walk the plank and we all sailed back to San Francisco."
"That was quite an adventure," said Frank politely.
"Oh, I've had many things happen to me. I've been in a lot of battles, too. Of course, I've retired from the navy now, for there isn't the excitement nowadays."
"Were you in the Spanish-American war?" asked Chet.
"I was all through it from start to finish. I had a narrow escape during that war. I took my ship out one night off the Philippines to see if I could catch a Spanish warship that I'd heard was in the neighborhood, and we sighted her just about midnight, not half a mile away. So we pumped a couple of shots over her keel and she turned and went steaming away to the north. Well, I gave chase, but the Spaniard was fast and it was three hours before we came alongside. We were just going to board the ship when the steward came up to me and said some other boats were coming up. There was. Five of 'em. All Spanish."
"What did you do?"
"What could I do? I couldn't run away. I told my men to get on board the Spaniard and I took all the sailors from that boat and made 'em surrender and put 'em on my ship. So the other boats didn't dare fire at my ship for fear of killing their own men and they didn't dare fire at the boat I was on for fear of sinking their own ship. So we opened fire on them and they didn't dare fire a shot back."
"That was mighty clever."
"Wasn't it? I sunk two of the Spaniards and the others surrendered and I brought 'em back to Manila Bay. I was given a medal for that."
Captain Royal looked very pleased with himself, and he dug into a capacious pocket and produced a plug of tobacco, taking a huge bite.
"Oh, I've had experiences," he said, wagging his head. "Are you going to be around here long?"
"Just a few days."
"I'd invite you to come and live in my cave, only there ain't much room."
"We have a cave of our own, farther down the shore."
"That's fine. I'll call and see you some time."
"We'll be glad to have you do that," said Joe cordially.
The old man got up and walked toward the entrance of his own cave.
"Come on inside," he urged. "You'd better stay and have some dinner with me. I was out fishing this morning and I caught quite a few fish. As soon as they're ready, we'll sit down and eat."
The boys accepted the invitation eagerly, and trooped into the cave of Captain Royal. Chet looked around hungrily for the fish, but there was none in sight. The old man invited them to sit down, and they squatted in the sand, there being no chairs or boxes.
"Are you the only person living around here, Captain Royal?" asked Frank.
"The only one. I thought I was the only person who knew about these caves until I saw you lads here."
"There was some one visited us last night—" began Frank. Then he hesitated in surprise, for Captain Royal leaped to his feet, a look of fear on his face.
"What's that?" he exclaimed. "Some one visited you! Don't tell me there's some one else around here!"