_Peter finds his stores low--Sends Youwarkee to the ship--Receives an
invitation to Georigetti's court._
FOR the first few days after our company had left us, Youwarkee could
not forbear a tear now and then for the loss of her father and sister;
but I endeavoured not to see it, lest I should, by persuading her to the
contrary, seem to oppose what I really thought was a farther token of
the sweetness of her disposition; but it wore off by degrees, and having
a clear stage again, it cost us several days to settle ourselves and
put our confused affairs in order; and when we had done we blessed
ourselves that we could come and go, and converse with the pleasing
tenderness we had hitherto always done.
She told me nothing in the world but her concern for so tender a father,
and the fear of displeasing me if she disobliged him, should have kept
her so long from me; for her life had never been so sweet and serene as
with me and her children; and if she was to begin it again, and choose
her settlement and company, it should be with me in that arkoe. I told
her though I was entirely of her opinion for avoiding a life of hurry,
yet I loved a little company, if for nothing else but to advance topics
for discourse, to the exercise of our faculties; but I then agreed it
was not from mere judgment I spoke, but from fancy. "But, Youwee," says
I, "it will be proper for us to see what our friends have left us, that
we don't want before the time comes about again." Then she took her
part, and I mine; and having finished, we found they would hold out
pretty well, and that the first thing to be done was to get the oil of
the beast-fish.
When we came to examine the brandy and wine, I found they had suffered
greatly; so I told Youwarkee, when she could spare time, she should make
another flight to the ship. "And," says I, "pray look at all the small
casks of wine or brandy, or be they what they will, if they are not
above half-full, or thereabouts, they will swim, and you may send them
down." I desired her to send a fire-shovel and tongs, describing them
to her: "And there are abundance of good ropes between decks, rolled
up, send them," says I, "and anything else you think we want, as plates,
bowls, and all the cutlasses and pistols," says I, "that hang in the
room by the cabin: for I would, me-thinks, have another cargo, as it may
possibly be the last, for the ship can't hold for ever."
Youwarkee, who loved a jaunt to the ship mightily, sat very attentive
to what I said, and told me, if I pleased, she would go the next day; to
which I agreed.
She stayed on this trip till I began to be uneasy for her, being gone
almost four days, and I was in great fear of some accident; but she
arrived safe, telling me she had sent all she could any ways pack up;
and any one who had seen the arrival of her fleet would had taken it for
a good ship's cargo, for it cost me full three weeks to land and draw
them up to the grotto; and then we had such a redundancy of things, that
we were forced to pile them upon each other to the top of the room.
It began to draw towards long days again, when one morning, in bed, I
heard the gripsack. I waked Youvarkee, and told her of it; and-we both
got up, and were going to the level, when we met six glumms in the wood,
with a gripsack before them, coming to the grotto. The trumpeter, it
seems, had been there before; but the others, who seemed to be of
a better rank, had not. We saluted them, and they us; and Youwarkee
knowing one of them, we desired them to walk to the grotto.
They told us they came express from Georigetti's palace, with an
invitation to me and Youwarkee to spend some time at his court. I
let them know what a misfortune I lay under in not being born with a
graundee, since Providence had pleased to dispose of me in a part of the
world where alone it could have been of such infinite service to me,
or I should have taken it for the highest honour to have laid myself at
their master's feet: and after some other discourse, one of them pressed
me to return his master my answer, for they had but a very little time
to stay. I told them they saw plainly, by baring my breast to them, that
I was under an absolute incapacity for such a journey, and gratifying
the highest ambition I could have in the world; for I was pinned down to
my arkoe, never more to pass the barrier of that rock. One of them
then asking, if I should choose to go if it was possible to convey me
thither, I told him he could scarce have the least doubt, was my ability
to perform such a journey equal to my inclination to take it, that I
should in the least hesitate at obeying his master. "Sir," says he,
"you make me very happy in the regard you show my master; and I must
beg leave to stay another day with you." I told him they did me great
honour; but little thought what it all tended to.
We were very facetious; and they talked of the number of visitors I
had had here; and they mentioned several facts which had happened, and,
amongst the rest, that of Nasgig, who, they said, since his return,
had been introduced by Pendlehamby to the king, and was, for his great
prudence and penetration, become Georigetti's great favourite. They told
me war was upon the point of breaking out, and several other pieces of
news, which, as they did not concern me, I was very easy about.
The next morning they desiring to walk, and view what was most
remarkable in my arkoe, and above all to see me fire my gun, which they
had heard so much of; I gratified them at a mark, and hit the edge of
it, and found them quite staunch, without the least start at the report.
I paid them a compliment upon it, and told them how their countrymen
had behaved, even at a second firing: "But," says he who was the chief
spokesman, and knew, I found, as much as I could tell him, "that second
fright was from seeing death the consequence of the first; and though
you had then to do mostly with soldiers, you must not think they choose
death more than others, though their duty obliges them to shun it less."
The same person then desired me to show him how to fire the gun; which
I did, and believe he might hit the rock somewhere or other; but he did
not seem to admire the sport, and I, having but few balls left, did not
recommend the gun to the rest.
A little before bedtime the strangers told me they believed I should see
Nasgig next morning. I presently thought there was somewhat more than
ordinary in this visit, but could noways dive to the bottom of it.
Just before they went to rest, they ordered the trumpeter to be early
on the rock next morning; and upon the first sight of Nasgig's corps, to
sound notice of it, for us to be ready to receive him.
[Illustration: 0100]