Jack! I say, Jack! there's a row among the boatmen.”
A sturdy, thick-set young fellow of seventeen was Jack, with low-hung
fists of formidable size, and a love for anything in the shape of a row
that constantly led him into scrapes. Hot-headed though he was, he was
one of the most good-humoured, well-meaning young fellows in the world,
who, while he would not hurt a fly if he could help it, was always ready
to fight in defence of his own or another's rights.
His chum, Roydon Leigh--“Don” for short--was of an altogether different
type of young manhood. Jack's senior by a year, he was tall for his
age, standing five feet ten in his stockings. His lithe, wiry frame
contrasted strongly with Jack's sturdier build, as did his Scotch
“canniness” with that young gentleman's headlong impetuosity.
“A row!” cried Jack delightedly, as he rushed to the taffrail. “Time,
too; four weeks we've lain here, and never a hand in a single shindy!”
His companion laughed.
“As for that,” said he, “you're not likely to have a hand in this,
unless you take the boat and row off to the diving grounds. All the
same, there's a jolly row on--look yonder.”
The schooner _Wellington_ rode at anchor at the northern extremity of
the Strait of Manaar, on the famous pearl-fishing grounds of Ceylon.
On her larboard bow lay the coast--a string of low, white sand-hills,
dotted with the dark-brown thatch of fisher huts and the vivid green
of cocoa-nut palms. The hour was eight o'clock in the morning of a
cloudless March day; the fitful land-breeze had died away, leaving
the whole surface of the sea like billowy glass. Half-a-dozen
cable's-lengths distant on the schooner's starboard quarter, a score
or-more of native _dhonies_ or diving-boats rose and dipped to the
regular motion of the long ground-swell.
It was towards these boats that Don pointed.
That something unusual had occurred was evident enough. Angry shouts
floated across the placid water; and the native boatmen could be seen
hurriedly pulling the boats together into a compact group about one
central spot where the clamour was loudest.
“I say,” cried Jack, after watching the boats for some time in silence,
“they're making for the schooner.”
“I don't half like the look of it,” replied Don uneasily; “they
shouldn't leave the diving grounds, you know, until the signal gun's
fired. I wish the guv was here.”
“Wishing's no good when he's ashore,” said Jack philosophically. “You're
the skipper _pro tem_., and you must make the most of your promotion,
old fellow. We'll have some fun, anyhow. Whew! how those niggers pull,
and what a jolly row they're making!”
By this time the excited cries, which had first attracted the attention
of those upon the schooner's deck, had been exchanged by the boatmen for
a weird chant, to which every oar kept time. Erect in the stern of the
foremost boat an old whiteheaded _tyndal_ or “master” led the song,
while at the end of each measure a hundred voices raised a chorus that
seemed fairly to lift the boats clear of the water.
“What are they singing, anyway?” demanded Jack. “There's something about
a diver and a shark in it, but I can't half make it out, can you?”
“We'll call Puggles--he'll be able to tell us. Pug! Hi, Pug! come here.”
“Coming, sa'b!” answered a voice from the cook's galley; and almost
simultaneously there appeared on deck the plumpest, shiniest, most
good-natured looking black boy that ever displayed two raws of pearly
teeth. Nature had, apparently, pulled him into the world by the nose,
and then, as a sort of finishing touch to the job, had given that organ
a sharp upward tweak and left it so. It was to this feature that Puggles
owed his name.
“Pug,” said his master, “tell us what those boatmen yonder are singing.”
The black boy cocked his ears and listened for a moment with parted
lips. “Boat-wallahs this way telling, sa'b,” said he; and, catching the
strain of the chant, he repeated the words of each line as it fell from
the lips of the old _tyndal_:
“Salambo selling the diver one charm,
Salaam, Alii kum!
Old shark, he telling, then do no harm,
Salaam, Alii kum!
One spotted shark come out the south,
Salaam, Alii kum!
He taking diver's leg in his mouth,
Salaam, Alii kum!
Me big liking got, he telling, for you,
Salaam, Alii kum!
So he biting diver clean in two,
Salaam, Alii kum!
The lying charmer we take to the ship,
Salaam, Alii kum!
There he feeling bite of the sahib's whip,
Salaam, Alii kum!”
“Why, this Salambo must be the chap the guv had whipped off the grounds
last season, eh, Pug?” cried Don excitedly.
“Same black rascal, sa'b. His skin getting well, he coming back. Dey
bring him 'board ship, make his skin sore two times,” explained Puggles,
grinning.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Jack. “We'll oblige 'em! We'll trice the fellow up!
Hullo, here they come!”
The boats having now reached the schooner, the chant ceased abruptly,
the heavy oars were noisily shipped, and, amid a perfect Babel of
voices, the boatmen came swarming up the sides, until the deck was one
mass of wildly gesticulating, dusky humanity. The uproar was terrific.
The old _tyndal_, who towered a full head and shoulders above his
comrades, pushed his way to the front, and commanding silence among his
followers, addressed himself to Don, who was always-recognised as master
in his fathers absence.
“Sab.” said he in pigeon English, “one year back big sa'b ordering
Salambo eat plenty blows for selling charm to diver-man. All same, this
season he done come back and sell plenty charm, telling diver-man he
put charm round neck, shark no eat him up. He telling plenty lie--this
morning one shark done come, eat diver, charm, all!”
“Let him stand forward,” said Don, beginning to enter as much into the
novelty of the thing as Jack himself.
The culprit, a sleek old fellow with shaven head, crafty eyes, and a
rosary of wooden beads about his neck, was shoved to the front.
“Are you the chap who was whipped off the grounds last year for selling
chaims?” demanded Don.
“Your honour speaking true words.” whined the shark-charmer, salaaming
until his shaven head almost touched the deck; “I same rascal.”
“I say, Jack,” whispered Don, “I shan't have him whipped, you know.
We'll, make him walk the plank.”
“Capital! Hell funk, certain, and there'll be no end of fun.”
“Well do it, then,” said Don decidedly. “Go forward and order two of
the lascars to take the boat and lie under the schooner's quarter---this
side, you know--ready to pick him up.”
In high glee Jack departed to execute this commission, while Don again
turned to the shark-doctor.
“Do you happen to have one of those charms about you?” he asked.
“One here got, sa'b,” said the fellow, producing from the folds of his
waist-cloth an _ola_ or fragment of palm-leaf, covered with cabalistic
characters. “Sa'b no look at him?”
“Keep it yourself,” said Don; “you'll soon need it. Hi, lascar!” to one
of the schooner's crew who stood near. “Fetch a plank here and run it
out over the side.”
By the time the plank was brought and run out until one-half its
length projected over the water, Jack came up chuckling, and by a sign
intimated that the boat was in readiness. The crowd of natives, guessing
that something unusual was afoot, craned their necks eagerly,
while Puggles executed a comic _pas seul_ in his delight. But the
shark-charmer, as Jack had predicted, “funked” miserably.
Knowing that with the boat in waiting there was absolutely no danger to
the shark-charmer's life, Don turned a deaf ear to his pleadings, and
made a signal to the lascars to proceed.
[Illustration: 0022]
Willing hands seized the quaking wretch and dragged him to the
schooner's side, where he was placed upon, the plank, Puggles standing
on the deck-end to keep it down.
“Steady, Puggles!” cried Don. “One, two, three--let him slide!”
Puggles jumped aside, the deck-end of the plank rose high in air, then
descended with a crash; and with a scream of terror the shark-charmer
disappeared over the side.
A tremendous shout rose from the natives on deck, and with a common
impulse they one and all rushed to the schooner's side, which they
reached just as the shark-charmer's head reappeared above the surface.
Another moment, and he was dragged into the boat, where, catching sight
of the laughing faces ranged along the rail above, he shook his fist in
mute menace, and so was rowed to shore.
“Teach the beggar a lesson he won't forget in a hurry,” said Don, as he
watched the boat recede. “Good-bye, old boy; we're not likely to meet
again.”
But in this sanguine forecast of the future he was mistaken, as events
speedily proved.