As the suffering party gathered together upon the river shore
preparatory to embarking in the boats, Murray's first care was to see
that A.B. Titely was placed where he could lie down and rest, and while
looking after the poor fellow, and seeing that he was one of the first
to be helped into the stern sheets of the first cutter, Roberts came up.
"Oh, I say!" he cried. "Who's that wounded?"
"Hallo! Who are you?" said his fellow middy sharply. "Don't disturb
the poor fellow."
"Why, eh? Yes--no," cried Roberts, with a mock display of interest, "I
was wondering where--well--it can't be! Why, Frank, you do look a
pretty sweep! Hardly knew you. I say: is it you?"
"Is it I, indeed!" growled Murray. "You're a pretty fellow to try that
on! Go and look at your face in the water if you can find a still pool.
I might grin at you."
"Am I browned, then--scorched?"
"Are you scorched brown! No, you are scorched black! Where are your
eyebrows? I say, Dick, those two little patches of hair in front of
your ears that you believed were whiskers beginning to shoot--they're
quite gone. No, not quite; there's a tiny bit left in front of your
right ear."
The conscious lad clapped his hands up to the sides of his face.
"I say, not so bad as that, is it, Frank? No games; tell us the truth."
"Games? No, I'm too sore to be making game," cried Murray, and he gazed
carefully at both sides of his messmate's cheeks. "You're scorched
horribly, and the whisker shoots are all gone--No, there's about half of
one left; and you'll have to shave that off, Dick, so as to balance the
other bare place. No, no; it's all right; that's not hair, only a
smudge of sooty cinder off your burnt cap. I say, you do look a beauty,
Dick."
"Oh, I say!" groaned the youth, patting his tingling cheeks
tenderly.--"Here, what are you grinning at, sir?" he cried, turning upon
the wounded sailor angrily.
"Beg pardon, sir. Was I grinning?" said the sailor apologetically.
"Yes; and he can't help it, Dick. Don't be hard upon the poor fellow;
he has had a spear through the top of his shoulder. But you do look an
object! Enough to make a cat laugh, as they say."
"Well, I don't see that there's anything to laugh at."
"No, old fellow, because you can't see your face; but I say, you can see
mine."
"Humph!" grunted Roberts sulkily, and his fingers stole up to pat the
scorched portions of his face.
"Case of pot and kettle, eh, Dick?" said Murray, laughing, then pulling
his face straight again as he winced with pain. "Oh, I say, don't make
me grin at you again. It's just as if my skin was ready to crack all
over. There, poor old chap, I'm sorry for you if you feel as bad as I
do. But you began it."
"Beg pardon, then," grumbled Roberts.
"Granted. But I say, why doesn't Anderson hurry us all on board?"
"I don't know. Yes, I do," cried the midshipman excitedly. "The
beggars--they must have quite escaped the fire! They're gathering
together over yonder, hundreds of them, with spears. I believe they're
going to make a rush. Fancy, after destroying the hornets' nest!"
"Then we shall have to kill the hornets," said Murray; and the two lads
were among the first to answer to the boatswain's whistle, which now
chirruped out loudly.
"Here we are, Mr Murray, sir," said Tom May, as the midshipman hurried
up to his little party. "This is us, sir--your lot."
"Well, I know that," said the lad petulantly, as he winced with pain.
"Beg pardon, sir," said the man. "Thought you might take us for the
niggers, seeing what colour we are and how our clothes are tumbling
off."
"Yes, we're black enough, Tom, but I hope you don't feel as I do," said
his leader.
"Much of a muchness, sir," said the man, with a grin half of mischievous
mirth, half of pain. "The first luff said something about hornets, sir.
I don't know much about them insecks, but we chaps feel as if we'd been
among their first cousins the wopses; eh, lads?"
"Ay, ay!" growled another of the men. "But aren't we soon going to have
a chance to use our stings?"
At that moment the preliminary order rang out--an order which sent a
thrill through the suffering band, making them forget everything in the
opportunity about to be given them for retaliation upon the advancing
body of warlike blacks stealing cautiously forward from the shelter of a
patch of mangroves away to the left, which had from its nearness to the
margin escaped the flames.
"The savage brutes!" muttered Murray, as he drew his sword, and winced
with pain.
"Hold your fire, Mr Murray," shouted the lieutenant. "Wait, my lads,
till you see the whites of their eyes, and then let them have it sharply
when you hear the word."
But the little volley from the midshipman's party of reserve was held
longer, for the lieutenant's words had little more than passed his lips
when there was a flash, followed by what resembled a ball of grey smoke
from the _Seafowl_ where she lay at anchor. Then almost instantaneously
came the roar of one of the sloop's bow guns and her charge of canister
shot tore through the sheltering bush-like trees, while a cheer burst
from the shore party, discipline being forgotten in the excitement
caused by what came as a surprise.
The heartily given cheer was followed by another puff of grey smoke, and
the crack of shot through the sheltered trees, the effect being that the
advancing party of the enemy was turned into a running crowd of
fugitives scattering and running for their lives, leaving the boats'
crews to embark quite unmolested, this last example of the white man's
power proving a quite sufficient lesson for the native king.