It was the next day, when the yacht was just beginning to glide over the
water again to pass through the opening in the reef, that Jack was
sitting by Ned's berth.
"Here, I call it foolishness, Mr Jack, sir, I do really. What is the
good of my lying here?"
"To get strong and well. Doctor Instow knows best."
"Well, he thinks he knows best, sir; but he can't know so well as I do
how I feel."
"You lie still and be patient."
"But I can't, sir. Here's Mr Bob Murray, who's a good enough steward,
valeting you and Sir John, and of course he can't do it properly."
"Nonsense. He is very good and attentive."
"Pooh, sir! So could any chap in the ship be good and attentive, but
what's the use of that if he don't understand his work?"
"Why, there's nothing to understand."
"Oho! Isn't there, sir! Don't you run away with that idea. There's a
lot. It seems nothing to you because things go so easy with you and the
guv'nor. You find your clean shirts and fresh socks all ready laid out
at the proper time, and you put 'em on just as you do your clothes, and
think it's nothing; but all the time there's some one been there
thinking it out first. Cold and dull morning; these trousers and that
silk shirt won't do, and warmer ones are there. Going to be a scorching
hot day, and it's the thinnest things in the bunks. Then don't I manage
the buttons the same? and when did you ever find a button off anywhere?"
"No, I never did, Ned."
"There! I suppose you think, sir, that when a button's knocked off
another one comes up like a mushroom in the night; but you take my word
for it, sir, buttons don't come up so how, and it's never having no
troubles like that to a gentleman that means having a good valet. I
don't say nothing about holes in socks or stockings, because when it
gets to that a gentleman ought to give 'em away. No, sir, it won't do.
Every man to his trade, and I'm fretting to get back to my work, for it
wherrits me to have other people meddling with my jobs. I don't believe
I shall find a thing in its place."
"Never mind all that, Ned. I've got something to tell you."
"Have you, sir? Let's have it."
"I don't know what you'll say to it."
"More do I, sir. Let's hear what it is."
Ned told him of what had passed on deck concerning the stay at the
island.
"Glad of it, Mr Jack," said Ned excitedly. "I should have been wild if
you'd give it up because of me getting that arrow in my arm. But look
here, I ain't a grudger, but if I do get a chance at the chap as shot at
me--well, I'm sorry for him, that's all."
"What would you do to him, Ned?" said Jack, smiling.
"What would I do to him, sir? What wouldn't I do to him, sir!"
"You don't mean to say you'd kill him?"
"Kill him, sir?" cried Ned, in a tone full of disgust; "now do I look
the sort of chap to go killing any one?"
"Well, no, Ned, you do not."
"Of course not, sir. Murder ain't in my way. I ain't a madman. Of
course if one's in a sort o' battle, and there's shooting and some of
the enemy's killed, that's another thing. I don't call that murder;
that's killing, no murder. But in a case like this: oh no, I wouldn't
kill him, I'd civilise him."
"What, and forgive him?" said Jack, who felt amused.
"Not till I'd done with him."
"And what would you do?"
"Do, sir! Why, what I say, sir; I'd civilise him, and show him
something different to hitting a man behind his back. There'd be no
call for him to strip, he'd be all ready; but I'd just have off my
jacket and weskit, and some of the lads to see fair, and I'd show him
the way Englishmen fight. I'd give him such a civilising as should make
him respect the British nation to the end of his days. That's what I'd
do with him. Fists!"
"Very well, Ned, look sharp and get strong so as to do it."
"Strong, sir? Why, I could do it now if you'd let me get up instead of
making me bask about like a pig in a sty. I just feel, sir, as we used
to say at school, as if I could let him have it, though it would hardly
be fair. He'd have the greatest advantage."
"Yes, I should say he would," said Jack, laughing.
"Ah, you mean about muscle, sir. I don't. I mean that if he managed to
get home with his fists in my face--not as I think he would--he'd make
me look disgraceful, and not fit to appear before the guvnor for a
fortnight. And all the time I might pound away for an hour and make no
difference in him. Whoever heard of a nigger with a black eye?"
"Well, no, Ned, I never did," said Jack, laughing. "Nature ain't been
fair over that, sir. Black chaps' eyes ought to go white after a fight;
but I suppose it's because they don't fight fair. Hitting a man in the
back, and with a poisoned arrow too! It makes me feel wild; it's so
cowardly. But there, they don't know any better. I say though, Mr
Jack, I am glad we're going to stay, and it makes me feel proud of our
crew. I'll shake hands with the lot as soon as I may go on deck."
"That's right enough, Ned, and as soon as you're fit Doctor Instow will
let you go."
"Tell you I'm fit as a fiddle now, sir," said the mate testily. "Why,
nothing would do me more good than to stretch myself by having a set-to
with that nigger as shot me."
"With one hand," said Jack dryly.
"Eh? With one hand, sir?" said the man, beginning to feel his
closely-bandaged arm.
"Yes; how could you fight with one hand?"
"I forgot all about that," said Ned thoughtfully. "Would be rather
awkward, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, I should think it would."
"Like fighting with one hand tied behind you, same as you did at
school."
"I never did have a fight at school," said Jack, quietly.
"No, of course not, sir; I remember you said so once before. Seems rum,
though. I used to have lots. But you were different, sir. My word
though, Mr Jack, how you have altered since we left home!"
"Think so, Ned? Have I?"
"Wonderful, sir. Don't you be offended, sir, at what I say."
"Not I, Ned."
"You would have been then, Mr Jack. Seems to me that you were quite an
old gentleman then, and now you've got to be quite a boy."
"Then I'm going backwards, Ned?"
"Not you, sir. You make me feel quite proud of you. Why, Bob Murray
told me yesterday that you'd been right up all three masts as high as
the sailors can get."
"Yes, I went up with my glass to look out for canoes. What of that?"
"What of that, sir? Well, fancy you trying to do such a thing a few
months ago!"
"Perhaps I am a little stronger now," said Jack thoughtfully.
"Stronger, sir! I should just think you are. But I say, Mr Jack."
"Yes?"
"About my arm. I should get licked now. Think it will ever come right
again?"
"Doctor Instow says it will, only it must have time. Do you feel any
sensation in it now?"
"Not a bit, sir. Doctor asked me if he hurt me when he altered the
bandages this morning, but I had to tell him he might do anything and I
should not feel it. Just as if it was quite dead. Rum, ain't it, sir?"
"It's very sad, Ned."
"Oh, I don't know, sir. It's a nuisance; but the doctor says it will
come right in time, so one's got to wait. He says he'll get the wound
healed up, and then we can talk to the nerves and muscles with some good
friction. Treat it like a lucifer, sir; give it a sharp rub and make it
go off. But I shall be glad when he'll let me come on deck. Might do a
bit o' fishing, sir."
"You shall, Ned, as soon as you can."
There were no signs of the savages' visit when they passed inside the
lagoon again, and, in the hope that they might remain now unmolested,
the yacht steamed right away from the entrance and cast anchor nearly on
the opposite side of the island, where the lagoon was at its widest, so
as to give ample room for manoeuvring in case of attack, where the shore
was more beautiful than in any part they had yet seen.
One of the tiny rivers ran down a precipitous gully in a series of
fern-hung falls, to lose itself in the golden sands, and close at hand
the sheltering trees were of the grandest in size and loveliness,
overhung as they were with festoons of flowers, each tree affording
ample study for Sir John and his friend; and the collecting went on
apace from morn to eve, so that the boxes they had brought began to fill
up and smell strongly of the aromatic gums and spices used to keep ants
at a distance.
The sailors took the keenest delight in the birds, and were eager to
learn to skin, and carefully laid them in the hot sunshine till they
dried. They gloried too in the pickle-tub, as they called the
spirit-cask, to which the abundant snakes and lizards were consigned.
Then of an evening they were always waiting for Jack to give the word
for fishing, partly as an interesting sport, but after the first few
times, for the sake of what Lenny called the pot, though in almost every
case the capture was fried.
It needed a good deal of care and discrimination though, and the
doctor's natural history knowledge was often called upon to decide
whether some gorgeously-armoured creature would be wholesome or no, some
of the tropic fish being poisonous in the extreme.
Then in addition there were the handsome birds which were collected;
these, especially the fruit-pigeons, being very toothsome, though the
larger parrots and cockatoos were, as Wrensler the cook said, not to be
sneezed at, though he declared that they would have been far better if
plucked instead of skinned.
So beautiful was the shore by the stream that the temptation was very
great to erect a tent and live on the land, but it was considered too
risky.
"Only fancy, Jack," said the doctor with a queer look, "our meeting with
the same trouble out in this solitary island as we should in London."
"What trouble?" said Jack, laughing. "You don't mean the noise?"
"No, but I mean the blacks," said the doctor.
"Oh, I see," cried Jack; "but it does seem such a pity. I should like
to have a tent ashore."
"It would be delightful under one of those big trees, but canvas is a
poor safeguard against the point of a spear. It wouldn't do."
"No," said Jack with a sigh, "it would not do."
Many excursions into the interior were made--the interior meaning a
climb up the slope of the great mountain--and in all cases a grand
selection of beautifully-plumaged birds was secured. Many of these were
the tiny sun-birds, glittering in scales of ruby, amethyst, sapphire,
and topaz; then too at the sides of the streams vivid blue-and-white
kingfishers with orange bills were shot, many of them with two of the
tail-feathers produced in a long shaft ending in a racket-like flat,
giving the birds a most graceful aspect.
Then there were plenty of paroquets, rich in green, orange, and
vermilion; rain-birds as the Malays call them, in claret and white, with
blue and orange beaks; parrots without number, and finches, swallows,
and starlings of lovely metallic hues; but the greatest prizes were the
birds of paradise, of which several kinds were secured, from the
grandly-plumaged great bird of paradise to the tiny king. Whenever one
of these was shot in some great grove at daybreak, Jack hesitated to
have it skinned for fear of injuring the lovely feathers, over which
adornments Nature seemed to have done her best. Now it was one of the
first-named, a largish bird, with its feathers standing out to curve
over in a dry fountain of golden buff, ornamented with their beautifully
flowing; wave-like shafts; and this would be of a prevailing tint of
soft cinnamon red; while the smaller kinds were lavishly adorned with
crests and tippets and sprays of feathers brighter than burnished metal.
"I don't know how it is," said Jack one day, "but every bird we find
seems more beautiful than the last."
He had just picked up a fresh specimen which had fallen to the doctor's
gun.
"Well, it is more novel than beautiful, Jack," said the doctor, as they
turned over and re-arranged the dark purple, or dark-brown, or claret,
or black, or green metallic plumage, for it might have been called
either according to the angle at which it was viewed. "Come, this will
help to make them believe that birds of paradise are of the crow
family."
"No one ever saw a crow half as beautiful as that," cried the lad.
"At home--no. But look at the shape of this bird--its wings, claws, and
build altogether; doesn't he look as if he could be a crow?"
"There is a slight resemblance, certainly," said Jack; "but this isn't a
bird of paradise."
"It is next door to one, my lad, and I am surprised to find it here."
"You know what it is then?"
"I know there's a northern Australian bird almost like it, if not quite.
I think it is the rifle bird. We'll have a good look when we get back.
Take special care of that one, Lenny."
"Ay, ay, sir. I takes special care of all of 'em, when the bushes and
thorns 'll let me."
They were well up the gully through which the stream off which the yacht
was anchored ran, for, finding the place rich in specimens, they had
toiled up higher and higher that morning.
Ned was for the first time of the party, on the condition that he would
be very careful, for his arm was still stiff and numb, though otherwise
he was much better; but he kept pretty close to his young master, and
let the men with him carry the guns and ammunition, and in several ways
made silent confession that he was not so strong as he was.
Jack noticed it, and made some allusion to the fact.
"Oh, don't you fidget about me, Mr Jack, I'm getting on glorious," said
the man quietly. "I feel as if the sun and wind up here were doing me
no end of good, drinking 'em in like. Doctor said I was to take it
coolly; so coolly I take it, as the sun 'll let me, so as to get strong
again as soon as I can. But, my word, what a place it is!"
"Lovely," said Jack. "It grows upon one."
"Ah, I should like to grow upon it," said Ned, grinning. "I don't feel
as if I should like to go away again."
"There's no place like home, Ned," said Jack, who had stopped to watch a
pair of vivid sun-birds probing the tiny trumpet blossoms of a white
creeper with their beaks.
"They say so, sir; but I say there's no place like this. When are we
going right up to the top?"
"When you are quite well, Ned. We should have started before now, but I
asked my father to put it off till you were strong enough to carry my
gun and wallet."
Ned said nothing, but he looked as if he thought a great deal, and when
he next spoke as they went on mounting the gully, it was directly after
the doctor had added a lovely kingfisher to the bag.
"I say, Mr Jack, sir, of course the doctor knows a deal, but do you
think he is always right?"
"I suppose no one is always right, Ned. Why?"
"About that bird--bird he shot. He said it was a kingfisher."
"Well, so it is. You heard him explain about its habits?"
"Yes; and that's what bothers me. How can it be a kingfisher if it
don't fish?"
"You might just as well say, how can it be a kingfisher if it don't fish
for kings."
"No, I mightn't, sir," replied Ned, whose illness seemed to have
developed a kind of argumentative obstinacy. "Nobody nor nothing does
fish for kings, sir, so that's nonsense. But what I say is, how can
that bird be a kingfisher if it don't fish?"
"But it does fish."
"No, it don't, sir; it flits about and catches butterflies, and moths,
and beetles. Doctor said it never caught fish at all, and never dived
down into the water. So what I say is, that it can't be a kingfisher."
"Well, but Doctor Instow says that far away back in the past its
ancestors must have lived on fish; and then the land where they were
changed, till perhaps it was one like this, with plenty of beautiful
little rivers in it, but few fish, and so they had to take to living
upon insects, which they capture on the wing, and they have gone on
doing so ever since."
"Seems rum," said Ned thoughtfully. "Then I suppose if this island was
to change, so that there were no more butterflies, moths, or beadles,
and more fish took to living in the rivers--they'd take to fishing
again?"
"Yes, I suppose so; all things adapt themselves to circumstances."
"Do they now, sir?"
"Yes; but you don't know what I mean."
"No, sir, I'm blessed if I do."
"How stupid! why don't you ask then?"
"'Cause I don't want to bother you, sir, when you're getting tired."
"What nonsense! Always ask if you don't understand me. I meant that I
have read about plants and animals altering in time to suit the place
where they are. If dogs are taken up into the arctic regions they get
in time to have a very thick fur under the hair; and if they are taken
into a hot country like this, they have a very fine silky coat."
"Do they now, sir?" said Ned. "Now I wouldn't have thought that a dog
would have so much gumption. But I don't know, dogs are very knowing."
"I don't think the dog has anything to do with it, Ned; it is a natural
law. Now, if a fir tree is in a sheltered place, where the soil is deep
and sandy, it grows to a tremendous size; but if the seed falls in a
rocky place, where it has to get its roots down cracks to find food, and
cling tightly against the cold freezing winds, it keeps down close to
the ground, and gets to be a poor scrubby bush a few feet high, or
less."
"Then the trees have got gumption too, sir. That's better than being
blown down."
"I don't know about gumption, Ned; but it's the same with flowers. They
grow thin and poor on rocks and stones, and rich and luxuriant on good
moist soils, and--Hallo! where are the others? we mustn't be left
behind."
"Oh, we're all right, sir. They're only just ahead, and we can't lose
ourselves, because all we've got to do is to go back along by the
trickling water here. I'll shout if you like."
"Oh no; I could blow my whistle, but I don't want to, because it would
startle the doctor. He'd think there was something wrong."
"Don't whistle him, sir. Here's a nice comfortable bit o' rock here;
would you like to sit down?"
"You're tired, Ned," said Jack quickly.
"Am I, sir? Well, I dunno--p'r'aps you're right. I s'pose I am a bit
fagged. Legs don't seem to go quite so well as they used. If you
wouldn't mind, I think I should like just ten minutes' rest to freshen
me up a bit."
"Sit down then."
"After you, sir."
"Very well: there. No, sit down--or, better still, lie down on your
back."
"Make the things about puzzled, and want to know what I am. I shall be
having snakes and lizards going for a walk up my arms and legs, sir.
But I don't know as I mind for a bit--I'll risk it."
Jack had halted at the foot of a perpendicular wall of moss-grown rock,
and set the example, after disturbing the grass and ferns at the foot,
of sitting down, and Ned lay at full length.
"Lovely, sir," he said. "It's worth while to get regular tired so as to
enjoy a rest like this. I don't s'pose they'll go much farther, and
they must come back this way, I suppose."
"I think so, Ned. They couldn't come back through the forest, and they
would not as soon as they missed us, they'd be sure to come this way so
as to pick us up."
He was silent for a few moments, and then went on softly, as his eyes
wandered over the trees and creepers about them--
"How lovely it all is, with the sun sprinkling light through the leaves.
It looks just like silver rain. Look at that great flapping moth.
That must be an Atlas, I suppose. I ought to try and catch it, but it
seems such a pity to go out and destroy every beautiful thing one sees,
so as to turn it into a specimen. Look at those orchid clusters growing
out of the stump where the tree branches. Shall I pick it, Ned? Say
yes, and I won't. I haven't forgotten the little snake which crept out
on to my hand that time. Hallo! What bird's that? What a chance for a
shot!"
As he sat there with a gun across his knees, first one and then
half-a-dozen large birds, emboldened by the silence, came stalking out
from beneath the bushes, looking something like so many farmyard hens as
they began to peck and scratch about.
"What a chance!" thought Jack. "I might get a couple for roasting, but
we've killed enough things for one day."
He sat perfectly still, watching the birds till they had crossed a
little opening in front and slowly began to make their way up the slope
in the direction taken by the doctor, Lenny, and the four men with them.
Then all at once one of the birds uttered a low clucking sound, and
stood up with outstretched neck gazing in Jack's direction.
The bird was absolutely motionless for a few moments, then it ducked
down its neck and ran off beneath the undergrowth.
"Birds are beginning to know that we're dangerous," he said aloud. "Did
you see those, Ned?"
There was no answer, and Jack turned to gaze down at his companion, who
was fast asleep and breathing heavily.
"Poor fellow, he is not so strong as he thinks," said Jack to himself,
"or else he will not own to his weakness for fear of being a trouble to
us. What a wonderful thing strength is! I suppose I'm a good deal
sturdier than I was. Must help father to-night arranging and making
notes of some of the insects we got yesterday. Why, we shall have a
regular museum by the time we get back to England."
And as he sat there in the calm silence, with the huge trees towering
above his head, as if to filter the light and let it fall in streams and
drops, it seemed to him that the best way to observe Nature was to sit
down perfectly still as he had, and watch. For in different directions
he saw next how animal and even insect stole out now to pursue its
ordinary courses, and he sat watching till the whole place seemed alive.
Twice over he heard shots, but they were faint and distant, and once
there was a peculiar bump as if a large stone had fallen from far up the
mountain side. Then all was still again, and the birds he had seen
pause in alarm resumed their pecking and climbing about.
"How soundly he sleeps!" thought Jack; and at last, when a good hour had
passed away, he began to wish for the return of the doctor and the men,
but there was no rustle of leaves, no sound of breaking strand or twig,
everything was perfectly still, and the lad shifted his position a
little so as to find a place to rest his back, and as he did so a
peculiar sensation came over him. It was as if a mental shadow crossed
his mind, begetting a shock of dread. The next moment a heavy blow from
behind fell upon his head, and all was blank.