They went down to the seashore and all got into the boat. Barty sat at
one end and the Good Wolf sat at his feet. Saturday took a seat on
Barty's knee and Blue Crest sat on his shoulder. The boat was a pretty
white one and the pirates rowed so well that it went up and down over
the waves in a most agreeable manner, rather like a rocking-horse.
When they reached the ship the rest of the pirates crowded to the side
to see who had been brought to the tea party.
"How they are all scowling," said Barty to the Captain.
"You must remember what I told you," the Captain said. "Those are
smiles. They are really grinning from ear to ear with pleasure because
they see you come without being chained and padlocked."
"Ah! I must remember," said Barty, "that when they look cross they
are only trying to look perfectly delighted."
Two of the sailors let down a rope ladder. Blue Crest flew up it and
Saturday ran up it in a minute. The pirates in the boat held it steady
and the pirate Captain carried Barty up on his back. The Good Wolf
looked serious for a second or so and then began to walk up as calmly
as if he had used rope ladders all his life.
When Barty was once on board every pirate on the ship began to wave
his hat and cheer. A few of them took out their swords and began to
flourish them and then seemed suddenly to remember that sword waving
might not seem polite, and very quickly put them back into their
scabbards.
Barty looked all around him. The deck was very big and clean and the
cannons were polished until the brass they were made of shone like
gold. At one end there was a gay blue and white awning spread, and
under it was a table which looked as if it were piled with the kind of
good things you have at a tea party.
"Where is Baboo Bajorum?" asked Barty, because he was really very
curious.
"If you will have the extreme goodness to please be so kind as to do
me the honor to step this way I will show you," said the pirate
Captain. So they went in a procession, the pirate Captain leading the
way with his hat in his hand, Barty following, the Good Wolf following
Barty, Saturday following the Good Wolf, Blue Crest hopping after
Saturday, and the six pirates in a line behind them. The pirates made
bows all the time and Barty took off his hat for politeness.
When they reached the awning a very big black person, who looked as
if he were Saturday who had suddenly grown immense, rose from a chair
and made a low bow. He was covered with shaggy hair and had strong
long arms and strong long hands. "He is a Gorilla," said the Good Wolf
in a low voice to Barty, "but I know him quite well, and though you
would not think it, he has a delightful disposition."
At all events he knew how to manage pirates and make them give a
beautiful tea party. Barty and the Good Wolf and Saturday and Blue
Crest were all given comfortable seats under the blue and white
awning, and the Captain and six pirates handed them things faster than
they could eat. Blue Crest had a muffin with strawberry jam on it, and
she perched on the end of her plate and pecked away in perfect
delight. Saturday had sugared walnuts which he had never tasted before
and which filled him with glee. Barty and the Good Wolf had everything
you could imagine, only the Good Wolf did not care for tea.
Baboo Bajorum did not talk except to make a remark now and then to
Saturday, who understood his language. The pirates seemed to
understand him without any words. He just sat and watched them and
they watched him to see if he were pleased with what they were doing.
Once a pirate who was greedy stole a piece of cake before he handed
the plate to Barty, and Baboo Bajorum stretched out his enormously
long hairy arm and seized him by the seat of his trousers and threw
him over the rail into the sea. The pirate could swim very well and in
a few minutes came clambering over the side of the ship again, but he
looked very wet and ashamed and sneaked down into the hold as if he
knew better than to come back to the party.
"That is the way he teaches us," said the Captain to Barty, eagerly
handing him a currant bun with one of his best bows. "It is a way that
makes you improve very quickly. He never argues. If he hits you or
throws you overboard you know you have made some mistake and you make
haste to find out what it is."
"I dare say that does teach people quickly," answered Barty, "but I
should not like it."
He glanced rather anxiously at Baboo Bajorum, but Baboo was looking
at him with quite a nice expression. Barty thought it must be a
Gorilla smile, and as he of course wished to be polite he got up and
made a low bow. Then Baboo Bajorum got up and made a low bow also, and
all the pirates made bows and the Good Wolf made a bow and Saturday
made one and Blue Crest bobbled her head up and down most gracefully.
"He likes you," the Good Wolf said to Barty in a whisper; "he sees you
are polite by nature. I saw it myself that first morning when we met
at the edge of the deep forest."
Barty's forehead wrinkled itself up in a puzzled way. "The morning we
met on the edge of the deep forest," he said. "Now you have made me
begin to think of that thing I can't remember. What is it, what is it,
what is it?"
"Never mind," said the Good Wolf; "you will find out in time. Just now
you must enjoy your adventures."
"Yes, I must," said Barty. "They are such splendid adventures. Just
think, here I am on a pirate ship, having tea with pirates. What will
come next?"
What came next was very interesting, but it was the thing that came
next but one which was thrilling.
After tea was over Baboo Bajorum made a sign to the pirate Captain and
he got up and bowed more deeply than ever and began to tell his story.
"This," he said, "is the story of how we were made into Polite
Pirates. When first we were pirates we were a disgrace to the name. We
chased ships and made them prisoners. We robbed them of their
treasures and burned them and sank them in the sea. We made people
walk the plank or chopped their heads off. Nobody would associate with
us and we were never invited anywhere. I think I might even say that
we were disliked. One day we dropped anchor near a small island in the
Indian Ocean. We were very hot and tired because the sun was blazing
and the sea was like a burning-glass and we had been having a busy
day. We had chased a merchant vessel loaded with a rich cargo of gold
and splendid stuff and ivory, and when we had caught it we had behaved
in our usual rude and inconsiderate way. We had sliced any number of
heads off, and after we had carried the rich cargo to our own ship we
had blown up the merchant ship without a word of apology. We were so
hot and tired when we dropped anchor near the little island that we
all lay down in our hammocks and fell into a deep sleep.
"Just before I went down to my cabin one of the other pirates asked me
to come with him to the side of the ship and look at something he had
been noticing on the island.
"'Do you see those big creatures dodging in and out among the trees?'
he said. 'Are they savages, or what are they?'
"I took my spy-glass and looked and saw that there really were some
big creatures moving about among the cocoanut palm trees. They seemed
to be peeping at us but trying to keep out of our sight and I could
not see them plainly at all.
"'They look like savages dressed in skins of wild beasts,' I said;
'but they cannot do us any harm so long as we are on the sea and they
are on the land. We will go to our cabins and sleep and leave one of
the little cabin boys to watch.'
"So we went downstairs and left a little pirate whose name was Reginal
Cyrel Adolphin Seymour to watch. He was a little boy who had run away
from school to be a pirate, and very often he had been heard to remark
that now he really was a pirate he would rather learn the
multiplication table. He was as hot and tired as any of us that day,
and what _he_ did was to fall asleep the minute the rest of us had
gone to lie down." The pirate Captain stopped and cleared his throat
and mopped his forehead with his red handkerchief.
"What happened then?" asked Barty. He saw Baboo Bajorum leaning
forward with his big hairy hands on his knees and listening
attentively. The pirate Captain began again:
"The sun got hotter and hotter and we slept and slept and slept. You
know how heavily one sleeps on a hot day and how hard it is to get
awake when you try. We did not try, but suddenly we all wakened at
once. We were wakened by a great roaring which we thought was a
sudden storm. But it was not a storm. It was a Baboo Bajorum sound,
which you have never heard and which I hope you will never hear. It is
louder than lions and fiercer than tigers and more piercing than
panthers and leopards. Baboo Bajorums never make it unless they are
very angry indeed, and when you hear it you had better look out."
"Are there more Baboo Bajorums than one?" Barty asked. "I thought this
gentleman was the only one in the world."
The pirate Captain opened his mouth very wide and drew a long breath.
Then he said in a solemn voice:
"When we waked up there were forty-two Baboo Bajorums on our ship and
one was sitting by each man's hammock and roaring the angry roar."
"Ah," said Barty, "how frightening!" and he felt quite alarmed.
"It was frightening," replied the pirate Captain, "but we deserved
it--for our unpoliteness. We had disturbed the Captain of the merchant
ship at his dinner when we cut his head off, and we had disturbed the
whole crew when we blew the ship up. Books about politeness always
say that you must have quiet and unassuming manners. We deserved all
that happened. We had been loud and assuming."
"What _did_ happen?" inquired Barty, and the Good Wolf leaned forward
to listen, and Saturday leaned forward and Blue Crest nearly tilted
over with eagerness.
"When they stopped roaring they took us all prisoners. They had swum
over from the little island and climbed up the ship's side as soon as
they were sure we were asleep. This gentleman," and he made a bow to
Baboo Bajorum, "is the Great Baboo of all. He made me get out of my
hammock and fastened a chain round my waist so that he could lead me
about. The other Baboos did the same with the other pirates. The first
place he led me to was to a black corner down in the hold. I had taken
captive a sick old gentleman on the merchant ship and I had loaded him
with chains and put him down in the darkest corner of the bottom of
the ship. I was going to try and make him sign a paper to give me the
money he had left on land. Baboo Bajorum made me take the chains off
him and take him on deck and wait on him and make bows to him until my
back was almost broken."
"He must have been very glad," said Barty, quite relieved.
"He was gladder than I was," said the pirate Captain. "It was through
him that we found out what the Baboo Bajorum really intended to teach
us. We were so frightened that we could not understand their signs,
and as they always knocked us down or threw us overboard when we did
not obey at once, we should very soon have been black and blue all
over. The sea was very full of sharks near the island and when you
were thrown overboard you never knew whether you would get back or
not."
"That was dangerous enough to make any one polite," said Barty.
"But," said the Captain, "we did not know it was politeness they
wanted until we brought the old gentleman out of the hold. He was very
polite himself and made the most beautiful bows to all the Baboos.
They had never seen bows before and they were very much pleased and
began to practice bowing themselves. When the old gentleman was
bowing a book fell out of his pocket. The Great Baboo kicked me until
I picked it up. This is it. I never go anywhere without it." He took a
book from his pocket and handed it to Barty, who opened it.
"'A Guide to Perfect Politeness, With Rules for Entertaining Royal
Families, the Nobility and Gentry.' That is the name of it," said
Barty. "Are there any adventures in it?"
"Not exactly adventures," said the pirate Captain. "It tells you how
to converse brilliantly and how to fill up awkward pauses and how to
begin a letter to a duke when you are writing to one, besides about
never eating with your knife and always saying 'please' and 'I thank
you' and 'pray excuse me' and 'I beg your pardon.'"
"Ah, I see!" said Barty. "That's why you said all those things in the
cave."
"It was indeed," answered the pirate Captain. "The moment the Great
Baboo saw the book he went and sat by the old gentleman and made signs
to him to read aloud. The old gentleman read to him. In half an hour
from that time I was chained to the mast and all the other pirates
were chained on the deck round me and I was reading to them out of the
'Guide to Perfect Politeness.' The Great Baboo had thrown me into the
sea in a very sharky place until I understood what he wanted. We all
knew all the book by heart before breakfast next morning, and since
then we have never broken a single rule. That was three years ago. The
other Baboo Bajorums went back to their island in six months, but the
Great Baboo has always sailed with us."
[Illustration: "It is another pirate vessel and it is going to attack
us."]
At that moment Barty heard the sound of many feet running on the
deck and the shouting of many voices, as if something new and alarming
was happening. The pirate sailors were all running about. Some came
tumbling up the companion-way and some went screaming up the rigging
and some went running to the side to look over the sea.
The pirate Captain stopped and clapped his spy-glass to his eye.
"Hello!" he said. "I beg your pardon, excuse me for disturbing you by
mentioning it, but there is a large ship bearing down on us at full
sail. It is another pirate vessel and is going to attack us."
Barty jumped up and threw his cap in the air. "Hooray! Hooray!
Hooray!" he said. "There's going to be a pirate battle and I'm certain
we shall win."
[Illustration]