"Dicky, dear boy, it's my impression that we shall see no blackbird's
cage to-day."
"And it's my impression, Frank Murray, that if you call me Dicky again I
shall punch your head."
"Poor fellow! Liver, decidedly," said the first speaker, in a mock
sympathetic tone. "Look here, old chap, if I were you, I'd go and ask
Jones to give me a blue pill, to be followed eight hours later by one of
his delicious liqueurs, all syrup of senna."
"Ugh!" came in a grunt of disgust, followed by a shudder. "Look here,
Frank, if you can't speak sense, have the goodness to hold your tongue."
The speakers were two manly looking lads in the uniform of midshipmen of
the Royal Navy, each furnished with a telescope, through which he had
been trying to pierce the hot thick haze which pretty well shut them in,
while as they leaned over the side of Her Majesty's ship _Seafowl_, her
sails seemed to be as sleepy as the generally smart-looking crew, the
light wind which filled them one minute gliding off the next, and
leaving them to flap idly as they apparently dozed off into a heavy
sleep.
"There, don't be rusty, old fellow," said the first speaker.
"Then don't call me by that absurd name--_Dicky_--as if I were a bird!"
"Ha, ha! Why not?" said Frank merrily. "You wouldn't have minded if I
had said `old cock.'"
"Humph! Perhaps not," said the young man sourly.
"There, I don't wonder at your being upset; this heat somehow seems to
soak into a fellow and melt all the go out of one. I'm as soft as one
of those medusae--jellyfish--what do you call them?--that float by
opening and shutting themselves, all of a wet gasp, as one might say."
"It's horrible," said the other, speaking now more sociably.
"Horrible it is, sir, as our fellows say. Well, live and learn, and
I've learned one thing, and that is if I retire from the service as
Captain--no, I'll be modest--Commander Murray, R.N., I shall not come
and settle on the West Coast of Africa."
"Settle on the West Coast of Africa, with its fevers and horrors? I
should think not!" said the other. "Phew! How hot it is! Bah!" he
half snorted angrily.
"What's the matter now?"
"That brass rail. I placed my hand upon it--regularly burned me."
"Mem for you, old chap--don't do it again. But, I say, what is the good
of our hanging about here? We shall do no good, and it's completely
spoiling the skipper's temper."
"Nonsense! Can't be done."
"Oh, can't it, Ricardo!"
"There you go again."
"_Pardon, mon ami_! Forgot myself. Plain Richard--there. But that's
wrong. One can't call you plain Richard, because you're such a
good-looking chap."
"Bah!" in a deep angry growl.
"What's that wrong too? Oh, what an unlucky beggar I am! But I say,
didn't you see the skipper?"
"I saw him, of course. But what about him? I saw nothing particular."
"Old Anderson went up to him as politely as a first lieutenant could--"
"I say, Frank, look here," cried the other; "can't you say downright
what you have to say, without prosing about like the jolly old preface
to an uninteresting book?"
"No, dear boy," replied the young fellow addressed; "I can't really.
It's the weather."
"Hang the weather!" cried the other petulantly.
"Not to be done, dear boy. To hang calls for a rope and the yard-arm,
and there's nothing tangible about the weather. You should say--that
is, if you wish to be ungentlemanly and use language unbecoming to an
officer in His Majesty's service--Blow the weather!"
"Oh, bosh, bosh, bosh! You will not be satisfied till I've kicked you,
Frank."
"Oh, don't--pray don't, my dear fellow, because you will force me to
kick you again, and it would make me so hot. But I say, wasn't I going
to tell you something about old Anderson and the skipper?"
"No--yes!--There, I don't know. Well, what was it?"
"Nothing," said Frank Murray, yawning. "Oh, dear me, how sleepy I am!"
"Well, of all the aggravating--"
"That's right: go on. Say it," said Murray. "I don't know what you
were going to call me, dear boy, but I'm sure it would be correct.
That's just what I am. Pray go on. I'm too hot to hit back."
"You're not too hot to talk back, Franky."
"Eh? Hullo! Why, I ought to fly at you now for calling me by that
ridiculous name _Franky_."
"Bah! Here, do talk sense. What were you going to tell me about old
Anderson and the skipper?"
"I don't know, dear boy. You've bullied it all out of me, or else the
weather has taken it out. Oh, I know now: old Anderson went up to him
and said something--what it was I don't know--unless it was about
changing our course--and he snarled, turned his back and went below to
cool himself, I think. I say, though, it is hot, Dick."
"Well, do you think I hadn't found that out?"
"No, it is all plain to see. You are all in a state of trickle, old
chap. I say, though, isn't it a sort of midsummer madness to expect to
catch one of these brutal craft on a day like this?"
There was an angry grunt.
"Quite right, old fellow. Bother the slavers! They're all shut up
snugly in the horrible muddy creeks waiting for night, I believe. Then
they'll steal out and we shall go on sailing away north or south as it
pleases the skipper. Here, Dicky--I mean, Dick--what will you give me
for my share of the prize money?"
"Bah!" ejaculated the youth addressed. "Can't you be quiet, Frank?
_Buss, buss, buss_! It's just for the sake of talking. Can't you
realise the fact?"
"No, dear boy; it's too hot to realise anything?"
"Well, then, let me tell you a home truth."
"Ah, do! Anything about home and the truth would be delicious here.
Wish I could have an ice!"
"There you go! I say, can't you get tired of talking?"
"No, dear boy. I suppose it is my nature to. What is a fellow to do?
You won't."
"No, I'm too hot. I wish every slaver that sails these muddy seas was
hung at the yard-arm of his own nasty rakish schooner."
"Hee-ah, hee-ah, hee-ah! as we say in Parliament."
"_Parliament! Parler_, to talk!" grunted the other. "That's where you
ought to be, Frank, and then you'd be in your element."
"Oh, I say! I was only politely agreeing with you. That was a splendid
wish. The beasts! The wretches! But somehow they don't get their
deserts. Here have we been two months on this station, and I haven't
had so much as a squint of a slaver. I don't believe there are any.
All myths or fancies--bits of imagination."
"Oh, there are plenty of them, lad, but they know every in and out of
these mangrove-infested shores, and I'll be bound to say they are
watching us day by day, and as soon as we are lost in one of these foggy
hazes it's up with their lug sails, and they glide away like--like--
like--here, what do they glide away like? I'm not as clever as you.
I'm at a loss for words. Give me one--something poetic, Frank."
"Steam out of a copper."
"Bah!"
"What, won't that do?"
"Do? No! There--like a dream."
"Brayvo! Werry pretty, as Sam Weller said. Oh, here's Tommy May--Here,
Tom, what do you think of the weather?" said the lad, addressing a
bluff-looking seaman.
"Weather, sir?" said the man, screwing up his face till it was one maze
of wrinkles. "Beg pardon, sir, but did you mean that as one of your
jokes, sir, or was it a conundydrum?"
"Oh, don't ask questions, Tom, but just tell us plainly what you think
of the weather."
"Nothing, sir; it's too hot to think," replied the man.
"Quite right, May," said the other midshipman. "Don't bother the poor
fellow, Murray. Here, May, what do you fellows before the mast think
about the slavers?"
"Slippery as the mud of the river banks, sir."
"Good," said Murray. "Well spoken, Tom. But do you think there are any
about here?"
"Oh yes, sir," said the man; "no doubt about it. They on'y want
catching."
"No, no," cried Murray. "That's just what they don't want."
"Right you are, sir; but you know what I mean."
"I suppose so," said Murray; "but do you chaps, when you are chewing it
all over along with your quids, believe that we shall come upon any of
them?"
"Oh yes, sir; but do you see, they sail in those long, low, swift
schooners that can come and go where they like, while we in the
_Seafowl_ seem to be thinking about it."
"Poor sluggish sloop of war!" said Roberts.
"Nay, nay, sir," said the man, "begging your pardon, she's as smart a
vessel as ever I sailed in, with as fine a captain and officers,
'specially the young gentlemen."
"Now, none of your flattering gammon, Tom."
"Begging your pardon, gentlemen," said the man sturdily, "that it arn't.
I says what I says, and I sticks to it, and if we only get these here
blackbird catchers on the hop we'll let 'em see what the _Seafowl_ can
do."
"If!" said Roberts bitterly.
"Yes, sir, _if_. That's it, sir, and one of these days we shall drop
upon them and make them stare. We shall do it, gentlemen, you see if we
shan't."
"That's what we want to see, Tom," said Murray.
"Course you do, gentlemen, and all we lads forrard are itching for it,
that we are--just about half mad."
"For prize money?" said Roberts sourly.
"Prize money, sir?" replied the man. "Why, of course, sir. It's a
Bri'sh sailor's nature to like a bit of prize money at the end of a
v'y'ge; but, begging your pardon, sir, don't you make no mistake. There
arn't a messmate o' mine as wouldn't give up his prize money for the
sake of overhauling a slaver and reskying a load o' them poor black
beggars. It's horrid; that's what it just is."
"Quite right, May," said Roberts.
"Thankye, sir," said the man; "and as we was a-saying on'y last night--
talking together we was as we lay out on the deck because it was too
stuffycatin' to sleep."
"So it was, May," said Roberts.
"Yes, sir; reg'lar stifler. Well, what we all agreed was that what we
should like to do was to set the tables upside down."
"What for?" said Murray, giving his comrade a peculiar glance from the
corner of his eye.
"Why, to give the poor niggers a chance to have a pop at some of the
slavers' crews, sir, to drive 'em with the whip and make 'em work in the
plantations, sir, like dumb beasts. I should like to see it, sir."
"Well said, Tom!" cried Murray.
"Thankye, sir. But it's slow work ketching, sir, for you see it's their
swift craft."
"Which makes them so crafty, eh, Tom?" cried Murray.
"Yes, sir. I don't quite understand what you mean, sir, but I suppose
it's all right, and--"
"Sail on the lee bow!" sang out a voice from the main-top.