"The Ocean Cat's Paw" (continued 5)

He started violently, and his hands trembled so that he had great difficulty in steadying the glass to fix it upon that which had suddenly caught his eye.

“Nothing!” he muttered impatiently. “It was my fancy. I made as sure as possible, just as I was going to lower the glass, that I could see the three masts of the sloop standing right out yonder towards the west. All rubbish and imagination,” he muttered. “I pictured that because it was what I was afraid of seeing when— Oh–h–h! It wasn’t fancy! There she is! Oh, there she is, after all!”

He looked sharply down at the deck, which was occupied only by four of the men, the skipper and Uncle Paul being in the cabin. But one of these men was Joe Cross, and Rodd chirruped faintly to attract’s the sailor’s attention.

“Make out anything, sir?”

“Come up here, Joe,” replied Rodd, in a low tone, and the man sprang to the ratlines and began rapidly to ascend till he was nearly on a level with the occupant of the cross-trees.

“See a whale spouting, sir? I should have thought it was getting too dark.”

“No, Joe; but I have just made out the sloop with the glass.”

“Nay, sir! Don’t say that!” cried the man, in a startled tone.

“Take the glass, Joe. I am afraid it’s true.”

“Oh, murther! as Pat says,” groaned the sailor, as he hurriedly adjusted the glass and began to sweep the horizon in the direction Rodd pointed out, a few points on the starboard bow. “Can’t see nothing, sir. Were you sure?”

“Yes, Joe; quite.”

“But it’s getting dark too fast, sir. I can make nothing out. If you are right, though, she mayn’t have seen us and may be out of sight again by morning.—Ah, I’ve got her!”

“There, I knew I was right, Joe.”

“Not quite, sir. Yes, I’ve got her quite plain now, but she’s dying out fast. It aren’t a man-of-war. It’s a two-master of some kind. A big schooner or a brig. It’s all right, sir. There’s life in a mussel, after all. My word, though, didn’t it bring my heart up into my mouth!”

“Are you sure it’s not a three-master, Joe?” cried Rodd joyously.

“Sartin sure, sir. Why, you talk as frightened like as we poor lads were.”

“What vessel was it, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know what she was, sir. I only know what she warn’t. That’s enough for us, eh, sir? I say, sir; what weather! Rather different to what we had in the French port. Looks settled too. Nice and cool the air feels. There, it’s only fancy, but it’s just as if I could sniff the land.”

“How far are we away, Joe?” asked Rodd.

“Long way, sir. But I say, Mr Rodd, sir, I wouldn’t say anything down below. It’d only skeer the lads and set them thinking all night.”

“But wouldn’t you say anything about having seen that ship?”

“Oh, if you like, sir. The skipper ought to know. But I can swear she warn’t a man-of-war, and that’s enough for us. Oh, there is the skipper. My word, though, you can hardly see him! Curus, isn’t it, how the mist begins to gather? Pretty good sign we are not so very far off the shore. Will you hail him, sir, or shall I?”

“You, Joe.”

A brief conversation ensued, question and answer ending by Joe’s declaration that he believed it was a brig; and then they descended to the deck.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Dreamy.

Very curious incidents are sometimes invented, but the most extravagant can be matched by others that have really occurred.

One of the last things that had been talked about that evening had been the vessel of which Rodd had caught a glimpse in the short tropic twilight just as it was being swallowed up by the darkness and mist of night. Joe Cross had incidentally said that he believed it was a brig, and that night as Rodd lay half asleep, half wakeful, in his cot, kept from finding the customary repose of a tired lad by the heat of the narrow cabin below, the word brig brought to mind the vessel that had so nearly run upon them in Havre-de-Grace, and in a drowsy stupid way he had pictured her tall tapering spars, the flapping of her stay-sail, and the rush of the storm.

Then all was blank, till all at once it seemed as if time had elapsed and he was picturing the French brig once more, knowing that it was the Jeanne d’Arc, though all was darkness and he only caught sight of the vessel now and then, by the flashing of the fort guns, while the roar of their reports echoed loudly above the rush of the wind as the brave vessel tacked from side to side of the harbour, striving to reach the mouth and escape out to sea.

It was all very vivid as in a dream.

Flash went the fort gun, there was the roar of the report, and all was darkness, again and again, while somehow—he could not tell how it was—the heat was intense, and Rodd threw up one hand, which came in contact with the top of his cot with a sharp rap.

“Bah! It hurts,” muttered the boy; and then dream and reality merged in one, for there was another flash and the roar as if of half-a-dozen guns.

But the boy was awake now to the fact that he was not dreaming of the escape of the French brig, but far south of the Equator, lying half stifled in his cot, listening to the roar of a tropic storm, while every now and then the cabin which he shared with his uncle was lit up by the vivid flashes, which were succeeded by fresh roars.

“What a storm,” thought Rodd, “and how hot!”

He slipped out of his cot to go and thrust open the cabin window.

“Hear the thunder, uncle?” he said.

But it had ceased for the moment, the last peal dying softly away, and for answer to his question he had only the deep regular breathing of a sound sleeper.

“He must have been tired,” thought the boy, and creeping closer to the cabin window he thrust out his hand to let in more air, but found the window wide open as it could be.

“He must have found out how hot it was and done that himself,” thought Rodd, as he knelt softly upon the bulkhead to try and breathe the fresh air; but it was hot and half suffocating, while the blackness was intense. One moment there was a faint quivering somewhere above, and just enough to show him the murkiness of the sea which spread out from beneath him far away like so much blackened oil touched for a few brief instants with streaks of gold.

“Why, there isn’t a breath of air,” thought Rodd, and then he started back, dazzled by the brilliant glare of the lightning, which made him involuntarily close his eyes and keep them shut till the terrific crash of thunder, which seemed to burst exactly over his head, had gone rolling away as if its echoes were composed of gigantic cannon balls passing slowly down metallic tunnels right away into space.

“That was a startler,” said the boy to himself. “How awful, but how grand! It’s rather hard to think that the danger’s in the lightning, and that there is nothing in the thunder to hurt.”

Then once more all was black silence above and below, and all beyond the cabin window seemed to be solid.

“I never saw a storm like this at home,” thought the boy. “Uncle can sleep!”

There was another brilliant flash, but this time Rodd felt prepared and did not shrink. He only knelt, gazing out of the stern window, impressed by the grandeur of that which he had seen.

Behind him he felt that everything in the cabin had been as light as day, but away from him all around he had looked upon a vivid picture, a gloriously wondrous cloudscape stretching far above and reflected far beneath in the smooth, oily, gently heaving sea—a grand vision of mountains of blue and gold and purple, which quivered before his eyes for a few moments in such vivid intensity that his eyeballs ached; then all was black again for a few moments, and then came the deep-toned roar as of hundreds of distant mighty cannons; not a sudden, sharp, metallic crash as in the last instance, but a deep murmurous intonation which made the woodwork of the schooner tremble.

Rodd felt no fear—nothing but a sense of awe at the grandeur of the storm, and it was with a feeling of eagerness that he waited for the next flash. But a minute passed before there was a faint quivering which slightly lit up the sea, to give place to blackness, silence and darkness. Then there was another faint quivering light that seemed to come from somewhere behind where he stood, and again he waited for one of those vivid flashes that should show up the configuration of the clouds shaped in mountain and valley and distant cave.

And many minutes must have passed, during which time Rodd listened in the appalling silence for the distant soft and increasing rushing sound of the coming rain, even as he had listened before in far-off Devon to the coming of some summer storm.

“There will be wind too,” he thought. “I wonder whether all is made fast aloft; for a storm like this,” he continued, in his ignorance, “can’t come without a tremendous wind and a rush of rain.”

His next thought was that he would go on deck and see what the watch were about; but he hesitated to stir, for the thought of the gorgeous cloudscape he had seen fascinated him and held him to his place.

“I needn’t worry about that,” he thought. “Captain Chubb’s sure to be on deck. He wouldn’t sleep like we do. If I go and open the cabin door it will wake uncle up. Hah! It’s quivering again. The storm can’t be over like this. Now there’s another big flash coming.”

He had hardly formed the thought when from quite up in the zenith down into the depths of the sea the arch of heaven seemed to open out in a sharp jagged line of vivid blue light, shutting again instantaneously, and the boy knelt gazing before him in wonder, for there, about a mile away, with every spar and yard and rope standing out black against the blue light, was the picture—the model, it seemed to him to be—of a tall-masted brig sitting motionless upon the water; and then it was gone.

“Why, that must have been the one we saw,” thought Rodd, and he strained his eyes again as he listened for the roar of the thunder that should have succeeded the vivid zigzag flash of electricity; but it did not come, and he waited and waited in the darkness in vain, trying to grasp how it could be that a storm should come to an end in so strange and unsatisfactory a way according to his lights, and why there should be neither rain nor wind.

He waited, trying hard now to pierce the black darkness, but trying in vain.

There was nothing to see, nothing to hear, and in spite of the wonder and awe that had pervaded him, Rodd Harding now behaved like a very ordinary human being, for he yawned, felt sleepy and that he was not so hot as he was before, and thinking that it was no use to stop there any longer, and that he might as well dress, he crept softly back to his cot and stood thinking again.

“Can’t be anything like morning,” he said to himself, “and I shall be able to see that brig then. Why, I remember now; I was dreaming about the storm at Havre, and that vessel—what was it? The Jeanne d’Arc—escaping, and the forts firing at her; and I saw the flashes from the guns. Of course; how absurd! That was the thunder and lightning, and—”

Rodd slipped slowly on to his pillow, yawned again, muttered something about how sleepy he felt, and the next moment he was off as soundly as his uncle; but only, it seemed to him, to begin dreaming directly after about the escaping of the brig, and the storm, mingled with the noise and the shouting of people ashore, and a heavy bump from somewhere close at hand; and then the boy was wide awake again, springing up so suddenly in his cot that it was not his hand but his head that struck with a rap against the woodwork, as a voice that he hardly recognised in the confusion shouted—

“Rodd, boy! Quick—on deck! The schooner’s going down!”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

Strange Proceedings.

“Is it a wreck, uncle?” panted Rodd.

“I thought so, boy,” cried Uncle Paul; “but don’t talk. Slip on two or three things.”

He was still speaking, when there was a rush down the cabin stairs, and the captain shouted—

“Quick, doctor! Your pistols and a gun! We are attacked!”

The words thrilled through Rodd, and the next minute he had seized a double gun and was ready to follow his uncle and the skipper on deck, where in the faint light of morning he found nearly the whole of the crew gathered across the after part of the deck, armed with capstan bars for the moment, while the mate and Joe Cross were rapidly handing round cutlasses and pikes. The forward part of the schooner was in the hands of strangers, all well-armed; others were climbing over the bows from a boat which was made fast alongside, while hurried orders were being given to them in French by a tall, dark, grey-haired man, sword in one hand, pistol in the other.

“What’s the meaning of this?” panted Uncle Paul to the skipper, while Rodd felt as if he were not yet awake, and suddenly recalled the fact that he had armed himself with a perfectly useless weapon, for in his excitement he had forgotten powder flask and bullets, having instead of the latter brought a belt containing small shot.

“Pirates or privateers, sir,” replied the skipper hotly, “but just give us time. Be smart, my lads. Pikes and cutlasses, and then all together with a will!”

“For heaven’s sake let’s have no bloodshed, Captain Chubb!” cried Uncle Paul, catching the skipper by the arm.

“Not my wish, sir,” said the captain shortly; “but this is my schooner while I command her, and I’m going to clear this deck.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” came in a low, eager murmur from the men.

“There, sir,” said the skipper; “you and the lad stand back. Ready, my lads?”

“No, no!” cried Uncle Paul, who saw that the strangers forward, all as well-armed as the schooner’s crew, were eagerly waiting for the order to advance from their leader, each party being ready to be let slip for what might prove to be a desperate encounter.

Rodd grasped this, and then felt puzzled as he saw a youth of about his own age suddenly elbow his way to the front to stand beside the leader.

Suddenly awakened as he had been from sleep, Rodd felt more confused than ever, for the sight of the youth, who from his dress seemed to be the second officer, added to his confusion, though for the moment he could hardly tell why.

And this just as Uncle Paul was grasping the skipper’s arm and saying—

“Don’t be hasty. These cannot be pirates. There must be some mistake.”

“Maybe, sir, but these fellows who have boarded us have made it. Now, sir, once more, stand back and let us clear the deck. They can talk when they are back in their boats.”

There was a few moments’ silence, each side seeming unwilling to begin, and taking advantage of an apparent hesitancy on the part of the strange leader, Uncle Paul instead of stepping back raised his hand and advanced, Rodd springing to his side, while their movement was exactly followed by the chief intruder and the youth who stepped to his side.

“Now, sir,” cried Uncle Paul firmly, in French.

“I understand English,” was the reply.

“I am very glad,” said Uncle Paul. “Now, sir, you see that we are well-armed and prepared. What is the meaning of this attack?”

“Ah, I am glad, sir,” said the stranger courteously. “Pray keep your men back, and I will mine.”

“Tell them to clear off the deck, then, doctor. There must be no talk here.”

“Be silent, Captain Chubb!” cried Uncle Paul sternly. “We must have no bloodshed.”

“No, sir,” cried his opponent quickly, and in very excellent English. “We are no pirates. I am the captain of that brig, and in urgent need of help.”

“And this is a very strange way of asking for it, sir.”

“Yes, yes, I know, my friend,” cried the other hotly, “but it was forced upon me by circumstances. I have need of your vessel, and I must have it at all costs—peacefully if you will, and I am ready to recompense you, the owner, for any loss of cargo at your destination which you may incur; but I must have the use of this little ship.”

“Indeed, sir!” said Uncle Paul, with a peculiar smile. “And if I say you cannot have it; what then?”

“Then, sir,” said the stranger haughtily, “you see we are prepared. I shall be compelled to take it from you by force.”

“Ah–h–h!” came like a low growl of satisfaction from the schooner’s crew, and Rodd was conscious of a rather ominous movement on the part of the men, who began moistening their hands and taking a firmer grip of their weapons.

Rodd was drinking in this colloquy, which filled him with wild excitement; but all the time he kept glancing from the young officer who stood sword in hand to the brig he had seen over-night and again thrown up by the storm, still lying about the same distance away from the schooner, and then with his head suddenly seeming to become clearer he cried out aloud—

“Uncle, those are the officers we saw at Havre, and that’s the brig that escaped.”

“You—you were at Havre!” cried the elder officer excitedly; and he stepped closer to Rodd, his young companion, watchful and on the alert, following his example and keeping close as if to defend him from any attempted seizure.

“Yes, yes, of course,” cried Rodd, without looking at the speaker, his eyes being fixed upon the young man.

“Then this is a French vessel?” cried the officer.

“No, sir,” replied Uncle Paul. “It is my schooner, and I am not in pursuit of your brig.”

“Why, it is!” cried Rodd suddenly, as he dropped the butt of his unloaded gun with a thud upon the deck. “I thought I knew you again!—Uncle, this is the young French prisoner I helped to escape from Dartmoor.”

Before he could say another word the sword the young Frenchman held dropped from his hand to the extent of its gold-laced knot, and to Rodd’s confusion a pair of thin arms were flung about his neck and he was held tightly to the young stranger’s breast.

“Oh, mon ami! mon ami! My dear friend!” he cried. “Do we meet once more like this? Mon père, c’est le jeune Anglais qui nous a sauvés dans cet affreux temps.”

“Moray!” cried the officer, looking stunned. “Is this true?”

“True? Oh yes! Oh yes!” cried the lad, speaking now in English. “You, young angler, fisherman, this is my dear father.”

To Rodd’s false shame and confusion, he had to submit to another embrace, for before he could realise what was about to happen the officer had followed his son’s example and not only embraced him, but kissed him on both cheeks.

“Well, this is a queer set out,” said Uncle Paul. “Then you are the two fellows who broke into my bedroom and helped yourselves to my purse?”

“Ha, ha! Yes, my friend,” cried the officer, laughing; “but you and your brave son will forgive. We were poor exiles and prisoners fighting for our liberty, and you will let us make amends.”

“Oh, well, you did,” said Uncle Paul bluffly; “but that is no excuse for turning pirates and trying to rob me of my ship at the point of the sword.”

“No, no,” cried the officer hastily, “but you are a brave Englishman, and you and your son—”

“No, sir, my nephew.”

”—will forgive. One moment; let me think!” cried the officer, as he dragged his hand from out of his sword-knot and thrust the blade into its sheath. “Yes, yes, let me think. I have it, Morny,” and turning to his followers he uttered a short sharp command which resulted in his men swinging themselves over the side and entering the two boats in which they had effected the surprise of the schooner.

At their first movement in retreat the skipper’s crew burst into a loud jeering laugh, and made as if to rush forward; but at a word from Captain Chubb they were silenced and held back.

“I thank you, sir,” said the French officer, raising his hat to the skipper. “It was well done. Now let me speak; let me explain,” and he looked from Rodd to his uncle and back, and then gave a glance at the skipper, while the two lads stood hand in hand.

“It was like this,” he said; “you saw us at Havre that stormy day, and of course my brig nearly crushed into your vessel. Then we lay at anchor close together till that order came down from a vile insensate Government to seize upon my vessel and my crew. It was the work of enemies, and I had to set sail at once, or once more my son and I would have had to pass years in the inside of a prison, not as culprits, monsieur, but as honourable gentlemen, French nobles, whose only crime was fidelity to one,”—and as he spoke he stopped short, uttering the word one with grave reverence, as he took off his hat—an example followed by his son. “Well, gentlemen, I cannot explain to you. There is not time. Only this—you saw that I made what you English call a dash for it—for freedom. It was like madness, but we said we would rather trust the storm than the French Government. They sent boats full of soldiers to seize us, but we kept on. They opened fire upon us from the forts, but we did not shrink.”

“Yes, yes, we saw all,” cried Uncle Paul, “and a very brave dash you made.”

Captain Chubb, who had listened, frowning heavily the while, uttered a low grunt.

“And a very fine bit of seamanship, sir,” he said, and the officer turned to him and raised his hat.

“It was desperate, sir,” he said gravely, “and I knew that I was risking the lives of my dear son and all on board; but no man there shrank. Well, sir, my story is long, but I must excuse myself for my conduct here. It is enough. We battled with the storm, as you saw, and escaped.”

“I always said you had gone down,” grunted Captain Chubb.

“No, sir. We escaped with but one wound, and that was to my poor vessel; and since the night when we left Havre-de-Grace upon my mission it has been one long struggle, as you would say, for life.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes,” said the officer sadly, and he pointed over the side towards where the beautiful duck-like brig with its taper spars sat the smooth sea, but with a steady stream of water trickling down her side. “My chief officer and my men have worked in every way they knew long days and weeks; but it is of no use. I would not give up the great object upon which I have come, but it is forced upon us at last that before many days have gone over our heads that vessel will lie far down in the depths of the ocean. Do you not see how low she is in the water?”

“Eh?” cried the skipper eagerly. “Eh? I thought she was low down with cargo. You’ve sprung a leak?”

“A cannon ball crashed through her, sir, and we have never been able to master that leak.”

“Then why in the name of thunder didn’t you put into port?” cried the skipper contemptuously.

The officer smiled.

“I cannot explain,” he said. “There was not time. I had work to do—a task that I had promised to fulfil, and we held on till it was forced upon me that I must get another vessel or stand with my men upon the deck and let our brave Roi Dagobert sink beneath our feet.”

“That wasn’t her name at Havre,” said the downright skipper.

“No, sir,” said the officer, smiling; “but were we not pursued? Would not news of our escape be sent far and wide? We were obliged to assume another disguise. The Jeanne d’Arc, we said, sank at Havre. That is the Roi Dagobert floating still; but for how long?”

“I don’t quite see that,” said the skipper bluntly.

“No?” said the officer. “Monsieur has never passed long years as a prisoner of war.”

“Well, no,” grunted the skipper. “Maybe that might have made me a bit shifty.”

“There, sir,” said the officer, turning now to Uncle Paul; “that is my excuse for this desperate venture—this attempt to seize your vessel. My business is urgent. I am a nobleman, a count of the French Empire, and I offer you any recompense you like to name if you will give up to me your vessel, leaving me full command for a week—a month—such time as I may need.”

“And if I say, sir, that I cannot accede to what you must own are wild demands,” said Uncle Paul, “what then?”

“What then?” said the officer slowly.

“You mean that you will attack us, and the strongest wins?”

The officer was silent, and he turned his eyes upon his son, who left Rodd and took his extended hands, both standing silent for a few moments.

“No, sir,” he said at last, slowly and gravely. “Neither my son nor I can raise our hands against those who gave us liberty, almost life. Morny, my boy, we will do our duty to the last, and try to keep the poor Roi Dagobert afloat. She may live long enough, even as she has kept afloat so long. If she sinks with us—well, my boy, we shall have done our duty to him we serve, and our names may not be forgotten in our country’s rolls.”

There was silence for a few moments, which was broken at last by Rodd.

“But I say, uncle,” he cried eagerly, “you always said you had plenty of time, and—”

The young officer turned quickly upon the speaker with an eager questioning look, but before Uncle Paul could speak, Captain Chubb took off his cap and stood scratching his head in the now bright morning sunshine.

“Look here, Mr Count,” he said; “I am only a rough Englishman, and a lot of what you have been saying about mission and that sort of thing is just so much Greek to me. But do you mean to tell me that you got a ball through the bottom of your smart brig that night in Havre, and have never been able to stop the leak?”

“Yes, yes; that is so, my friend. My chief officer has tried everything that he could do, but we could not get at the place. And look yonder! The pump has been kept going ever since.”

“Well, sir,” continued Captain Chubb, “I don’t know your first mate, and I don’t want to say hard things of a man who could take that there smart craft out of the French harbour as he did that night. He is a very fine sailor, sir. But if I aren’t got a carpenter on board this schooner as would give him ninety out of a hundred and then beat him, without bringing to work the little bit I knows myself, why, I’m a Dutchman, and that I aren’t.”

“Ah!” cried the Count excitedly. “You think—”

“No, sir; I don’t say I think anything without having a look. But as there don’t seem to be any fighting going on, and you and the doctor here turns out to be old friends, why, before you talk of throwing up your job and taking to your boats—which would be a much more sensible thing to do than going down with colours flying when there warn’t no need, and setting aside getting some fresh water and provisions into your boats and making for a place on the West Afric coast—I should just like to come on board your craft with my man and see what mightn’t be done by stopping that there leak.”

“My friend!” cried the Count excitedly, and he caught the skipper by the hands.

“Well, sir,” said the skipper, with a grim smile, “if you are Mr Rodd’s and the doctor’s friend and wants to be friends with me, why, Tom Chubb aren’t the man to say no and want to keep enemies. So there’s my fin. But look ’ere, you know,” he continued, as he gave the Count’s thin white hand a tremendous grip, “yours was a very queer way of coming upon us, and might have meant some nasty marks on my white decks. You can’t help being a Frenchman, but do you know what an Englishman would have done? He’d have just come here civil like and said, ‘Look here, strangers, we have sprung a leak, and we are going down. Come and lend us a hand at the pumps.’”

“Ah, yes, of course,” said the Count warmly. “It is what I should have done.”

“And you would like me to come aboard and see if there’s anything we can do?”

“Yes, yes!” cried the Count eagerly.

“All right, then, sir,” said the skipper coolly; “I am sailing under the doctor’s orders, and if he’s willing, I’m your man.”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

A Ship Surgeon.

“Well, Mr Rodd, sir,” said Captain Chubb, as he and the lad stood watching the regular dip of oars in the brig’s two boats as they glided back over the tranquil sea to where their vessel lay motionless in the calm. “Well, Mr Rodd, sir, don’t you wish you’d been born a Frenchman?”

“No,” cried the boy sharply. “I am thankful I was born English.”

“And so you ought to be, my lad. Of all the crackbrained, sentimental, outrageous chaps I ever met there’s none of them comes up to a Frenchman.”

“Oh, you are too bad, Captain Chubb.”

“Too bad, eh? Why, aren’t they always kicking up a dust and making revolutions, cutting off their kings’ and queens’ heads, and then going to war with all the world, with their Napoleons and Bonapartes and all the rest of them? Call themselves men!”

“Why, you are as bad as uncle,” cried Rodd merrily. “You and he ought to be always the best of friends. But, if you speak fairly you must own that they are very gallant men.”

“Gallant men!” cried the skipper scornfully. “I don’t call them men. I call them monkeys! Men! Butchers, as cut off the head of their beautiful Queen Mary What-you-may-call-it, and then after shedding blood like that, sending no end of poor women who never did them a bit of harm to that guillotine. I’d be ashamed of myself, Mr Rodd, to take their part.”

“Oh, nonsense!” cried Rodd warmly. “I say that the Count and his son have proved themselves to be very brave fellows. Why, you owned as much yourself about the way in which they escaped with the brig.”

“Oh, that was right enough,” grumbled the skipper.

“I am not going to deny,” continued Rodd, “that there are plenty of horrible wretches amongst the French. And that Revolution was awful; but haven’t we plenty of bad men amongst the English?”

The skipper chuckled.

“Well, yes, we have had some pretty tidy ones, if you come to read your histories. But I don’t know so much about those chaps being brave. It was a very clever bit of seamanship, mind you, that taking the brig out in the teeth of the storm with hardly room to tack. I am not a bad pilot in my way when I like to try, but I will be honest over it; I daren’t have tried that job. It was a very clean thing. But look here, my lad. It’s no use for you to try and crack that up, because him who did it must have been as mad as a hatter, and between ourselves, that’s what I think that Count is.”

“Oh, fudge, captain!” cried Rodd. “No more mad than you or I.”

“Well, I can answer for myself, my lad,” said the skipper, with a chuckle, “but that’s more than I’d do for you, for you do some precious outrageous things sometimes.”

“I?” cried Rodd.

“Yes, you, my lad.”

“What a shame!” cried Rodd indignantly. “I defy you to prove that I have done anything that you could call mad. Now tell me something. What have you ever known me do that wasn’t sensible?”

“Oh, that’s soon done,” cried the skipper. “Didn’t you go and gammon the soldiers when they were after the escaped French prisoners? Don’t you call that a mad act? Fighting against the laws of your country like that!”

“Ah, well, I suppose I oughtn’t to have helped them, captain; but I couldn’t help it.”

“No, sir, and that’s what the Frenchmen would say. Now, what in the world is that chap after, with his mission, as he calls it? What does he mean by coming rampaging out south with a hole in the bottom of his brig and the pumps going straight on to keep the water down? Would any one but a lunatic go risking his crew and his vessel like that?”

“Well, it does seem rather wild,” replied Rodd thoughtfully.

“Wild? Well, that’s only your way of saying he’s stick, stark, staring mad. And here he’s been out weeks and weeks, knowing as he says that his brig was sinking, when he could have put in at Gib, or the Azores, or Las Palmas, or brought up in one of the West Coast rivers, where he could run up on the tidal mud, careened his vessel, and set his ship’s carpenter to work to clap patches upon her bottom outside and in. Don’t you call that mad?”

“No. He might have had reasons for not doing so.”

“Ah, that’s right, sir; argufy. You young scholarly chaps who have been to big schools and got your heads chock-full of Latin and Greek, you are beggars to argufy—chopping logic, I suppose you calls it—and I give in. You could easily beat me at that; just as easily as I could turn you round my little finger at navigation. But I’ll have one more go at you; I says that there French Count is mad.”

“And I say he is not,” said Rodd, “only a brave, eccentric nobleman who may have a good many more reasons for what he does than we know.”

“All right, youngster. I give you my side. Now that’s yours. Now, just answer me this. Warn’t it the crack-brainedest bit of ask-you-to-go-and-borrow-a-new-strait-waistcoat-to-put-me-in sort of a job for him to bring his two boat-loads of men, like a black-flag-and-cross-boned Paul Jones sort of a pirate, aboard our schooner in the dark, thinking he’s going to take possession of it to use instead of his own brig, when if he’d had any gumption he might have managed to patch her up, and— Here, I say, I can’t go on talking like this before breakfast, my lad. I must have my bowl of coffee and a bit of salt pork and biscuit before I say another word.”

“Oh, very well,” cried Rodd merrily. “I see we shan’t agree; and we don’t want to quarrel, do we, captain?”

“Quarrel? Not us, my lad! It takes two to do that, and we knows one another too well.”

“Then look here,” cried Rodd, “you are taking it very coolly and talking about breakfast; aren’t you going to order the boat out and go aboard the brig at once?”

“I aren’t a-going to do anything till I have had my breakfast,” said the captain. “They’ve spoilt my morning snooze, but I aren’t going to let them spoil my morning meal, nor my lads’ neither.”

“But it’s urgent,” cried Rodd. “Suppose while you are thinking of eating and drinking the brig goes down?”

“Yah! She won’t go down. If she’s floated for weeks like that she’ll keep her nose above water while I swallow two bowls of coffee. I can’t work without something to keep me going. Let them pump for another half-hour, and then we’ll go.”

“We!” said Rodd sharply. “That means me too?”

“Oh, ah, if you like to come; only we shall have to keep a sharp look-out.”

“What, for fear it should sink under us?”

“Nay, I didn’t mean that, my lad. I mean, you see, we are dealing with a lunatic.”

“Captain!” cried Rodd indignantly.

“Ay, but we are, and there’s no knowing what sort of games fellows like that will be up to. I mean to give the mate strict orders to load all three guns, and if he sees the Count coming off again with his two boats full of men to take possession while he’s got us tight, to sink them without mercy. Ah, here’s the stooard, welcome, as you might say, as the flowers in spring. Come along, my lad, and let’s lay in stores.”

In spite of his words and deliberate way of proceeding, Captain Chubb had made his arrangements so that within half-an-hour of going down to breakfast he had the schooner’s boat lowered down with Joe Cross, five men, and the carpenter, who had already handed into the boat what he called his bag of tricks, the said tricks being composed of an adze, saws, chisels, augers, and nails, and very shortly afterwards the oars were dipping, and with Uncle Paul and Rodd in the stern-sheets they were gliding over the glittering sea and rapidly shortening the distance between them and the beautiful brig, which won a string of encomiums from the skipper as they drew near.

“Yes, she is a beauty,” he said. “It would be a pity to let her go down. Look at her lines, and the way she’s rigged. If I wanted to sail a brig I wouldn’t wish for a better; but then, you see, I don’t. She’s a bit low in the water, though, and no mistake. Well, we shall see; we shall see.”

The Count and his son were eagerly awaiting their coming, and welcomed them warmly as they mounted the side, while, casting off his show of indifference, the skipper cast an admiring glance round the deck of the brig, and then gruffly exclaimed—

“Now then, sir, I want your bo’sun. But look here, can he parley English?”

“No,” said the Count, “but my son and I will interpret everything you wish to hear.”

“I don’t know as I want to hear anything, sir,” growled the skipper. “I want to see for myself, and after that mebbe I shall want to give a few orders, which I will ask you to have carried out.”

“Yes; everything you wish shall be done directly.”

“Umph!” grunted the skipper, looking round. “Pump rigged, and two men trying to keep the water under. Ought to be four.”

“Yes, of course,” cried the Count, and he turned to give an order; but Captain Chubb clapped his hand upon his arm.

“Hold hard,” he said. “They’ll do for a bit. Now then, I want to go below and sound the well.”

The Count and his son led the way below, the French crew standing aloof and displaying the discipline of a man-of-war, no man leaving his place while the skipper made all the investigations he required, and then came up on deck with his mahogany face more deeply lined with wrinkles than before.

“Well, captain,” said Uncle Paul, while Rodd, who had kept close to his young friend of the Dartmoor stream, eagerly listened for what their expert had to say.

“Well, sir,” he said, at last, as he took out a little seal-skin bag and deliberately helped himself to a little ready-cut scrap of pigtail tobacco, “your craft’s in a bad way, and if something isn’t done pretty smart she’ll be down at the bottom before long.”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Count impatiently, “but we have tried everything, and it is impossible to get at the leak.”

“Hah! Tried everything, have you, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Count. “Some of my brave fellows have been half-drowned in diving, trying to plug from inside, using yards to force bags of oakum into the holes.”

“Yes,” said the skipper. “The ball went right through, I suppose?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Count, and Rodd noted that he was having hard work to master his impatience and annoyance at the skipper’s annoyingly deliberate treatment of their urgent needs.

“So I suppose,” said the skipper coolly, “but mebbe you haven’t done quite all; leastwise I should like to try my little plan, and if it don’t answer, why, you won’t be any worse off than you are now; and when I give it up as a bad job, why, you will have to take to your boats and we shall have to find room for you aboard the schooner. Now then, please, you will just order two more men at that pump, and four more ready to take their places so as to keep on pumping hard.”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Count eagerly. “What next?”

“Order up what spare sails you’ve got from the store-room, and a few coils of new line.”

The Count gave his orders quickly, and his men went off to carry them out.

“Good,” said the skipper coolly. “That’s smart.”

“What next?” cried the Count.

“Well, sir, as quickly as I can, I want to do something to lighten the ship.”

“No; I must protest!” cried the Count excitedly. “You are going to throw the guns overboard?”

“Humph!” grunted the captain. “Who said so? I didn’t. Nay, that’d be a pity. I wouldn’t do that till the very last.”

“Ah!” sighed the Count, as if deeply relieved.

“Well, the next thing is, sir, just you leave me and my men alone and let yours look on till I want their help.”

The Count was silent, and all looked on whilst in obedience to the skipper’s orders the English sailors, led by the carpenter, set busily to work, seized upon the new spare sails that were brought up on deck, and cast loose the coils of fresh hemp line that were placed ready. Then with the skipper putting in a word here and there, resulting in the lines being attached to the corners of the largest square-sail, these latter were seized by a couple of the men, who dragged the sail forward as the brig glided very gently along, for it was nearly calm, and then passing the new sail deftly beneath the bowsprit, two of the men climbing out and seeming to cling with their feet to the bobstay until little by little they had got the edge right beneath the stay. Then while their mates at the corners helped at the lines, they passed down the sail right into the sea till they had lowered it to its full extent and they could do no more, save once or twice when they hung down from the stay and gave the canvas, which was slowly growing saturated, a thrust or two with the foot where it seemed disposed to hitch against the brig’s keel.

And now the skipper took his post upon the bowsprit and gave his orders by word or sign to the men who governed the movement of the great square of canvas by means of the lines attached to the corners, the two at the fore corners of the sail getting outside the bulwarks, barefooted, to walk along the streak, and hauling just as much as was necessary to drag the sail right beneath the keel, their two messmates preparing to follow, and under the captain’s guidance keeping all square and exact in the effort to get the keel to act as the dividing line to mark the oblong into two exact portions.

It was very slow work, for the canvas was stiff and moved unwillingly downward beneath the keel; but after a time it began to yield to the steady drag of the ropes upon the two fore corners, and, once started, progress began to be faster. For, so to speak, the brig began to help, sailing as it were gently more and more over the canvas, till at the end of about half-an-hour it was in the position at which the skipper had aimed, having while below in the hold pretty well marked down the position of the two holes made by the shot from the fort. These were about amidships, some few feet, as far as he could make out, on either side of the keel, one naturally being much higher than the other in the diagonal course taken by the heavy ball.

At last he called to his men to halt, and took off his cap, to stand thinking, the position now being that the sail was drawn right under the brig, and the sailors at the four corners were holding on tight to prevent the vessel from sailing clear.

So far not a word had been uttered by the Frenchmen, all of whom had stood clear or mounted the rigging or deck-house, so as to give the Englishmen ample room; but now in the silence Rodd advanced to the skipper eagerly, to say—

“Are you sure you have got the canvas well over the holes?”

Captain Chubb made no reply, but stood with his cap in his left hand gazing aft, and then he moved his right arm two or three times, as if forming an imaginary line through the brig’s hull.

“Did you hear me, captain?” said Rodd eagerly. “Are you sure you have got the sail over the holes?”

“No,” granted the skipper. “Are you?”

“No; but I thought—”

“Yes, my lad; so did I. You thought we ought to get the sail in the right place.”

“Yes,” said Rodd.

“Well, then, now, my lad, I should be much obliged to you if you’d tell me which is exactly the right place.”

Rodd looked at him in despair.

“Thank you, my lad,” said the skipper dryly. “I am much obliged. But all right, Mr Rodd; you can’t tell, and I can’t tell. We know that the ball that came from the fort must have gone downwards a bit, so that it went out from lower than where it went in; but there’s no knowing whether she was hit from starboard or from larboard, and that’s where I’m bothered. But never say die. I think we will make this bit of canvas fast now, for I’m pretty sure of one thing; it will be a plaister for one hole if it isn’t for the other.”

“But look here, captain,” cried Rodd.

“What now?”

“Won’t the water run under the canvas just the same as it did before?”

“No, my lad, it won’t; and I’ll tell you the reason why when we have done. Of course you know I am not going to stop all the water from coming in below, but if I can get it checked a bit so that they can keep it down easy with one man at the pump instead of two, she won’t go to the bottom just yet, and they will have time enough to get into port to set the carpenter at work.”

“Then you won’t let our carpenter try to stop the holes?”

“No, my lad. You see, he never learned to be a fish, so that he could work under water; and though he’s a bit of a crab in his way, I don’t think he could manage it for all that. Now I’m ready to go on. Come, my lads, put your backs into it and haul them sheets tight. Here, master, let two of your men go to each corner and help my lads. All together as hard as they can!” shouted the skipper, and the Count quickly translated his order.

“That’s right! Haul away, my lads!” shouted the skipper. “That new canvas won’t give. Harder! Harder! Now then, one more—all you know!—Make fast!”

“Excellent! Superb!” cried the Count, as the men ceased from making fast the ropes, which were brought over the bulwarks and passed round the belaying pins. “Do you think that will stop the leak?”

“Maybe yes, sir; maybe no. If it don’t do it we will put another plaister on, and another, and another. You have got plenty of spare sails and rope, and when we have used all yours I dare say we can find some more in the schooner. Now then, set your men going at that pump, and rig up another as quick as you can.”

One pump began to clank heavily at once, and a short time after another was at work, and the clear bright water began to sparkle out of the scuppers, while, moved as it were by the same spirit, the French crew burst into a shrill involuntary cheer.

“How can I ever thank you, captain?” cried the Count, while his son snatched at Rodd’s hand.

“Ah, I haven’t done yet, sir,” said the skipper coolly. “This is only a try.”

“Oh, it’s grand,” cried the French lad, clinging to Rodd’s arm. “You have saved our ship.”

“Don’t you holloa till you are out of the wood, young fellow,” said the skipper, as he heard the words. “Now, Mr Rodd, sir, what was it you wanted to know?”

“Why the water will not still rim in underneath the canvas.”

“Only because of this, my lad. Aren’t they pumping the water out now as fast as ever they can?”

“Yes,” cried Rodd; “but more will run in.”

“Yes, my lad, and as it runs in won’t the weight of the water outside push the canvas closer and closer in round the leak?”

“Yes, of course,” cried Rodd. “I didn’t think of that. And as there gets less inside it will seem to suck the canvas closer to.”

“Quite right, my lad. That’s about the way it works; and now we have got to wait for about an hour before we can know whether we have got both holes covered, or only one.”

“Wait for an hour?” cried Rodd.

“Well, perhaps, before we are sure; but I dare say I shall be going down and sounding the well a time or two before that.”

But long before the hour had elapsed the skipper found that though the water in the brig had subsided to a certain extent, one of the holes must be still uncovered, and he began at once to repeat his proceedings, coming to the conclusion that one of the bullet-holes was beyond the reach of the canvas. This time, after all was drawn tight, half-an-hour’s pumping proved that his surmises were correct, and the skipper smiled with satisfaction as the Count and his men cheered them in delight on finding after a good deal of pumping that there was a very perceptible diminution of the water in the hold.

“It is superb, and so simple,” cried the Count to Uncle Paul; “but I feel humbled, sir. Why could not our French sailors have been able to do this?”

“Well,” said Uncle Paul good-humouredly, “the only reason I can give is that they were not English.”

“That’s it, sir,” said the skipper. “You have hit the right nail on the head. But look here, Mr Count—I don’t know your name.”

“Des Saix,” said the Count, smiling.

“Look here, sir; this is nothing to make a fuss about. It will keep you afloat while the weather’s fine, but just come a rough time, those sails will be ripped off as easily as pocket-handkerchiefs. Besides, they will hinder your sailing no end.”

“Ah, that is bad,” said the Count, changing countenance.

“Oh no, not it. There’s worse disasters than that at sea.”

“But will it not be possible for the carpenters to stop the leaks?”

“No, sir; not unless you do what I say.”

“Ah! What is that?”

“Run your craft up one of the rivers to where you can careen on the mad, and then a few hours between tides will be enough to put everything straight.”

“Is there no other way?” asked the Count.

“Only downwards, sir,” cried the skipper; and the French lad glanced questioningly at Rodd, who shook his head.

“No,” said the boy, almost in a whisper. “I don’t think there is any other way. He is quite right.”

After another hour’s pumping, the skipper gave out his intention of going back to the schooner; but the Count would not hear of it. He begged and implored Uncle Paul to give him their company at the breakfast he was having prepared, and after a little hesitation the doctor gave way, and suggested to the skipper that they should leave their departure till late in the afternoon, when a far better opinion could be given of the state of the brig.

“What do you say, squire?” said the skipper, looking at Rodd.

“Oh yes, let’s stay!” And his impulsive young French friend grasped him by the wrist.

“Very well, gentlemen, I have only one thing to say, for I don’t suppose the schooner will sail away and leave us behind. Let them call it dinner, and I’ll stop. I aren’t been in the habit of eating my breakfast at two o’clock in the day.”

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 the haute 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.”

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 the alouettes were 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 one d in 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!”