RADAMA PUFFADDER.
It was a pleasant sunny morning when Ethel was roused by Morley
tapping on her cabin-door, and making the cheerful announcement that
land was in sight, almost ahead, so she and Rose made a rapid
toilette and joined him and the rest of their friends on deck.
The south-west wind held steadily, and its breath rippled all the
morning sea in wavelets that seemed tipped with gold. The sunshine,
bright and warm, spread a yellow tint over all the western quarter of
the sky. In dark outline, as if tinted with indigo, about ten miles
distant, rose a mountain, in the form of a sugar-loaf, blending at
its base with lesser ones that were near to the sea.
"Madagascar, Ethel," said Morley, with a bright smile, as he pointed
to the coast.
"And yonder headland is Cape St. Mary," added Dr. Heriot. "I should
know the place pretty well by this time."
"Why, Leslie?" asked Rose.
"Because I see it now for the fourth time."
"Poor Leslie!" said Rose; "and you have gone those long voyages so
often, when I knew nothing of them."
"Or--of me, Rose."
"That does seem so strange now!"
"However, Rose, I have no intention of voyaging much more, 'for
there's a good time coming,' as the song says."
Morrison had the wheel, and the captain desired him to "hug the land,
and keep close in shore, as he wanted to procure fresh water."
"I find that the needle varies at times in these waters, sir," said
Morrison.
"Aye--but our patent steering compass always holds true."
Though the long and remarkable coast they were approaching is flat
and low near the shore, the sea around it is without hidden danger in
the form of shoals, rocks, or reefs, and water fifty fathoms deep can
be found within four miles of it.
As the ship drew nearer, objects became more distinct--strange trees,
gigantic plants, and fantastic wigwams, like bee-hives; and after
breakfast, Ethel and Rose, with their op era-glasses, could see these
features plainly, and particularly a headland, covered with tufted
palm-trees.
"And that is Cape St. Mary?"
"Yes," replied Morley, who, to support her, had one arm round Ethel
and another round the mizzen-shrouds, for the deck was slippery with
the morning dew and the spray that flew over it now and then, for the
ship careened well over beneath the breeze, which was now almost
abeam.
"Then we are out of the Mozambique Channel?"
"Yes; or nearly so. By noon we shall be quite out of it."
"Thank Heaven! I wish we were only a little nearer Port Louis."
"We shall soon be so, Ethel, after leaving this shore."
"Don't deem me foolish, dearest; but, after all we have suffered, I
always tremble when I think of--of----"
"What, Ethel?
"Of those three piratical proas which the captain speaks about. I
dreamt of them last night, and saw them quite full of wild black
fellows, with spears, plumes, and war-paint--just like the pictures
we have seen of the savages who killed Captain Cook."
"The coast hereabout looks wild and solitary indeed."
"A few miles eastward lies Fort Dauphin," said the doctor; "it was an
old French settlement, but was deserted and ruined long ago."
Anxious, we have said, to procure water, the captain stood close in
towards one of the little isles that lie about the south-western
extremity of Madagascar; and now every man on board, except the
convalescent Mr. Basset, had to work hard in taking in and stowing
some of the fore-and-aft canvas, getting the kedge anchors and warps
ready, having the boats clear, and the soundings had to be attended
to without intermission.
A curiously-built native boat was now seen approaching swiftly from
the shore, having suddenly shot out of a creek. It was very long,
very low, and was paddled by two men.
"Hollo, ladies!" cried Noah Gawthrop, who was busy in the remaining
quarter-boat, getting the fall-tackles clear; "look at this swell
coming along-side in a cocked hat, like a wice-admiral o' the fleet!
But I beg parding, marm," he added, suddenly, as Ethel adjusted the
screw of her lorgnette, "you mustn't look at him, for he ain't
nothin' on but the cocked hat and a necklace."
"Sheep 'hoy!" cried a shrill voice, as the boat rose and fell on the
waves.
"What do you want, darkey?" asked Noah.
"You savey me?" cried the Malay.
"No, I am blow'd if I do," was the surly reply.
"What for you no savey me?" remonstrated the other; "yam, yam--sell,
sell--nice, nice, nice."
Then he held up an inverted bottle, to show that it was empty.
"By Jove! 'tis old Captain Puffadder!" exclaimed Captain Phillips, as
the native boat came sheering alongside, and a white-headed Malay,
who literally had no other attire than a necklace of crystal beads
and an old battered naval cocked hat, which some man-o'-war wag had
given him, relinquishing his carved teak-wood paddle, caught with
great dexterity a line which was cast to him, and made it fast to a
round knob at the prow of his boat, which, as the line became taut,
fell at once into the ship's wake astern.
"It is old Radama Puffadder, whom we saw on our two last voyages. He
sells vegetables and fruit to any ship that comes close enough in
shore," said Heriot, looking round for the young ladies; but when the
boat had come nearer, the utter want of attire displayed by the two
Malays had fairly driven the Misses Basset and Nance Folgate down the
stair of the companion, where the merry but half-stifled laugh of
Rose could be heard from time to time.
"A sly old file!" said Mr. Foster, looking over the taffrail.
"How are you, Puff, my boy?" asked the doctor; "what have you got for
us?"
The old Malay, who was hideously ugly, and whose bare, attenuated
form was brown as old mahogany, lifted his cocked hat, and replied in
what seemed an unintelligible torrent of consonants, and then held up
a turtle by one of its hind feet, after which he grinned and yelled.
He and his companion next hauled in the tow-line, hand over hand,
till the boat was close to the lee mizzen-chains--the chances of
being swamped seemed nothing to Captain Puffadder--and to Morley, who
stood on the channel-plate, he handed on board whatever he had to
offer, and in a short time there was on deck a goodly pile of the
yellow-bellied gourds for boiling and eating, with butter and milk;
bananas, to roast like apples; peas, beans, and water-melons;
brown-skinned onions, and golden-coloured oranges and lemons;
together with a great sprawling turtle, the sight of which would have
made an alderman's eyes twinkle; and there, too, were six brace of
wood-pigeons.
For all this seasonable stock, the captain paid him by six bottles of
strong alcohol, three boxes of lucifer-matches, and a dollar or two,
and these coins, when cut into four, form the circulating medium in
the "Great Britain of Africa."
The captain and the doctor, who seemed to understand and amuse
themselves with the jargon of "Captain" Puffadder, inquired where
fresh water was to be had, and he led them to understand that, under
the brow of the cliff to which he pointed, there was a creek in one
of the islets; that there several springs flowed, and safe anchorage
would be found.
"This will suit admirably," said Phillips, to Bartelot. "We shall
lie there a couple of days, for some of our rigging requires
overhauling sorely."
"Won't you come on board, Puff, and pilot us, while we run in?" asked
Mr. Foster.
"I no savey _that_--no can do," replied the Malay, as he let his boat
drop astern, and, taking a long pull at one of the rum-bottles, he
grinned with satisfaction and handed it to his longing companion.
"Won't you remain with us till we have filled our water-tank?" cried
the captain over the taffrail.
Again the dingy Malay grinned and shook his white head, which looked
as if it had been snowed over, and, pointing shoreward, to indicate
that he must return, cast off the tow-line, after which his boat,
that bobbed up and down like a cork, was rapidly dropped astern.
The wind was now becoming light, and, with Morley and Heriot stripped
to their shirt-sleeves, pulling ahead in the quarter-boat, and Mr.
Foster in her bow, sounding carefully every minute with hand-lead,
the ship was steered by the captain in person towards the creek, the
entrance of which was seen to open plainly enough under the brow of
the cliff, at the base of which some breakers were boiling white upon
a ridge of rock, "like the devil's own milk," as Noah said, adding:
"I wonder why the deuce that old fellow wouldn't come aboard? I hope
it isn't a snare, this kind inwitation to anchor in a creek."
"A snare, Noah?" repeated Bartelot.
"'Cause, sir, he has the look of an old wrecker, to my mind."
A dead calm soon fell upon the land and sea, and from the square
yards of the _Hermione_, her fore and maincourse, and a jury
main-topsail, hung down straight and motionless, till they were
hauled up prior to furling, as she glided slowly, and with almost
imperceptible motion, through the narrow gut of the creek.
"Leather strip--ten fathoms; red rag--seven fathoms; seven again;
white rag--five fathoms," Foster kept repeating from time to time, as
he hove the hand-line from the bow of the leading boat. Bartelot and
Morrison were also in it, and pulling with all their strength, for
they had the kedge anchors and a couple of strong Manilla warps with
them.
Beyond its narrow entrance, which was almost shrouded in mangroves,
that brushed the ship's channels, the creek opened out into a tiny
bay, or oval-shaped basin, and there, before sunset had beamed its
red farewell upon the summit of the rocks, the _Hermione_, with her
courses hauled, her jury topsail-yards lowered upon the cap, her
spanker brailed up, and her jib and stay-sails stowed away, was
moored quietly, as if in the middle of a dock, by two warps, one at
the stem and the other at the stern, both being carried ashore to her
kedge anchors, which were embedded in the banks, among the mangroves
and other luxuriant vegetation that grew down to the water's edge.
"From here to Port Louis we have a run of about seven hundred odd
miles," said Captain Phillips; "the season is fine; but we shall fall
to our work by daybreak to-morrow--fill the tank--overhaul the fore
rigging, have it tarred down and rattled anew in some parts, and then
be off with the first breeze of wind, as I don't fancy the Madagascar
fever."
"And this creek, with its mangroves dipping in the slimy ooze, seems
just the place to catch it," said Tom Bartelot.
"I suppose it was in some such cliff as that, Ethel," said Morley,
looking up at the tall rocky brow which overhung the creek, "that old
Marco Polo, who, it seems, wrote about Madagascar in the thirteenth
century, says the birds called the roc built their nests."
"Were they like Sindbad's roc?" asked Rose.
"Larger, says old Marco, in form resembling an eagle, and so huge
that they would soar into the air with the largest elephant in their
talons, and let it fall dead on the earth prior to devouring it; and
that their wings, which, when outspread, obscured the sunshine like a
flying cloud, measured forty-eight feet apart, each pen-feather being
twenty-four feet in length."
"There is nothing like telling a good story when one is about it; but
I hope the breed is extinct," said Rose.
"Yes; like the giant wader of Australia, if it ever existed at all."
As the evening closed in, with no thought of local danger or
treachery, but enjoying the brief cessation from the constant toil to
which they were subjected by the smallness of their number, and
thinking only of the termination of their voyage and a happy future,
our friends were all grouped under the quarter-deck awning, and Noah
was enjoying a quiet pipe at the windlass-bitt, with a can of grog
beside him.
Aft, the top of the cabin skylight had been covered with a white
cloth and improvised as a table, on which were spread some of the
luscious fruits and sliced water-melon bought from the Malay,
Puffadder, and a bottle or two of the captain's best wine.
Then, that music might not be wanting, Ethel and Rose, uniting their
clear, sweet, happy voices, while Heriot accompanied them on his
flute, which he played to perfection, sang one of their favourite
duets, waking the echoes of the rocks, and rousing out of the
mangroves the stork, the pelican, and the samba, with its plumage red
as fire: while the red sunlight died away, and the tropical
constellations came out, and while the solemn shadows deepened in
that lonely creek, the soft English voices of the two sisters so well
attuned together, filled Noah's stern eyes with moisture, and his
rough old head with sweet, sad holy thoughts of other times, as he
listened, and sat alone, the last occupant of the once crowded and
noisy forecastle-bunks.
That lonely creek was fated to present a very different scene about
the same hour on the morrow!