Carey was not long in communicating to the doctor all he had heard from
Bostock, and his words revived his companion wonderfully.
"Capital!" he said. "The fact of our being unarmed and this scoundrel
keeping all the weapons out of our reach half maddened me."
"Yes, wasn't it horrid?" said Carey. "I felt better directly, and, do
you know, I don't think we have half so much to fear now from the
blacks. I don't feel a bit afraid of them. I can make them do just as
I like; so can Bob."
"Perhaps so, and if we were alone we could make them our obedient
servants. They look up to the whites as superior beings, but they are
not to be trusted, my boy. This Mallam has had them under his thumb for
years, and as you must have seen, a few sharp orders from him bring out
their savage instincts, their faces change, their eyes look full of
ferocity, and if their white chief wished it they would kill us all
without compunction."
"And cook and eat us afterwards without salt?" said the boy, merrily.
"You laugh," replied the doctor, "but it is a horrible fact, my boy; and
if we knew all that has taken place in connection with this man's rule
over them, we should have some blood-curdling things to dwell upon."
"I don't feel afraid," said Carey, coolly. "Of course, I should if it
came to such a state of affairs as you hint at. But if it came to the
worst, I should jump overboard and try to swim ashore."
"To be taken by a shark or a crocodile?"
"Well, that would be a more natural way of coming to one's end, sir.
But, pooh! we're not going to be beaten, doctor. We must get Mr Dan
Mallam--Old King Cole, Bob calls him--shut up below somewhere and out of
sight of the blacks. They'd obey us then, and we should be all right.
Why, we're not going to be afraid of one man."
"One man?" said the doctor.
"Yes, one man. He's only one man when he's alone. I felt yesterday
that we had twenty-one enemies. Now I feel that we've only one. Bob
says we must wait."
"Yes, it is good advice," replied the doctor, "and we will wait. Carey,
my lad, we must bend to circumstances till our chance comes. There, I
have been behaving in a poor, cowardly way."
"Oh, nonsense, sir!"
"I have, Carey, and there is no disguising it; but I am going to pluck
up now. Let the scoundrel go on thinking we are submitting and are as
much his servant as the blacks are."
"Till the right time comes, sir, and he wakes up to the fact that he's
our prisoner. I say, if a ship came in sight and saw us we could hand
him over and he'd be taken right off and treated as a criminal."
"Exactly. It seemed very galling to see him seize the pearls."
"Yes," said Carey, "but let him think they're his, and the ship, and all
below. We know better."
This was a trifling bit of conversation, but from that hour hope grew
stronger in the breasts of the three oddly made prisoners and slaves of
such a king. Their semi-captivity seemed more bearable, and it showed
in their looks and actions, the beachcomber noting it and showing a grim
kind of satisfaction.
"That's right," he said. "Glad to see you are all settling down and
making the best of it. It's no use to go kicking against stone walls or
rocks. Be good boys, and I won't be very hard on you. You'll eat and
drink your food better, and instead o' grizzling you'll enjoy yourselves
and get nice and fat. My pack, too, will like you all the better. I
don't think I shall let 'em have that ugly chap Bostock, though; he
cooks too well."
But Carey took matters, according to the doctor's ideas, too easily--too
freely. He did not shrink from speaking out and taking liberties with
his position. It was as if he had forgotten that he was a prisoner, and
he pretty well did as he liked.
"Here, what are you after, youngster? Where are you going?"
"Along with the pack to get cocoanuts," said Carey, coolly.
"I never told you," growled the old fellow, fiercely.
"No, but I want to see them get the nuts down," said Carey,
nonchalantly, and he went.
It was the same when a party of the blacks went fishing, which was
nearly every day, so that there was always an ample supply, and the boy
returned flushed and brown, full of the adventures he had had.
Black Jack now took to heading the fishing expeditions, and always
looked after Carey at starting time, grinning and making signs
suggestive of hauling up the fish and hitting them over the heads with a
nulla-nulla, while the crew of the outrigger canoe always greeted the
boy with a grin of satisfaction.
"They are all awfully civil to me now," said Carey to Bostock, "but I
think it's a good deal due to the ticky-ticky. I say, Bob, how long
will the molasses last?"
"Oh, some time yet, sir."
"But when the last jar's eaten?"
"Then you must try the pickles, sir. And when that's done, as it used
to say on a big picture on the walls in London, `If you like the
pickles, try the sauce.' There's no end o' bottles o' sauce."
"Are there? Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir. There's a big consignment, as they call it, sent from London
to Brisbane. One part o' the hold's chock full o' cases. Why, there's
a lot o' sugar things too. Oh, we shall find enough to keep them
beggars going for a long time yet."
Meantime the great tubs had all been emptied with more or less
satisfactory results, and re-filling began with the accompanying
stacking of the shells. The pearls were stowed away in cigar boxes,
which were emptied for the purpose, the beachcomber now taking to
smoking some of those turned out, and giving an abundance to Carey, who
took them eagerly, always carrying several in his pocket.
"Surely you are not going to smoke those, my boy?" said the doctor, who
looked quite aghast. "Wait a few years before you try anything of that
kind."
"Why?" said the boy, with an arch look. "Because if you begin now you
will most likely be laying up a store of trouble for the future in the
shape of a disordered digestion, which may hang about you all your
life."
"I'm not going to smoke them," said Carey, laughing. "Look here, I roll
each one up tight in a bit of paper, and then cut it with a sharp knife
into six, ready to give the black fellows if they behave themselves.
They'll do anything for me for a bit of tobacco."
"But don't they ever try to take it away from you?"
"Not now. They tried snatching once or twice, but I gave the one who
did a good sharp crack, and they left it off, for I'm always fair to
them."
"A dangerous game to play."
"Oh, no. The others always laugh at the one who's hit. They don't seem
to mind taking a crack from me."
Those fishing trips were an intense pleasure to Carey, for there was so
much that was novel. Now fish with scales as brilliant as the feathers
of humming-birds would be caught; now the blacks would be warning their
companions to beware of the black and yellow or yellow snakes.
"Mumkull--kill a fellow," Black Jack said, and to emphasise his meaning
he put out a hand in the water towards one of the basking serpents,
snatched it back as if bitten, and went through a regular pantomime
indicative of his sufferings. First he drew up one leg, then the other,
threw himself on his back in the bottom of the canoe, kicked out, threw
his arms in the air, straightened himself out, rolled over, and then,
with a wonderful display of strength, curved his spine and sprang over
back again, repeating the performance, which was wonderfully like the
flopping of a freshly caught roach in a punt, even to the beating of the
tail, which was here represented by the man's legs. By degrees this
grew more slow; then there was a flap at intervals, finishing with one
heavy rap, and he lay quite still as if dead.
"Dat a way," he cried, raising his head and grinning hugely. "Mumkull--
kill a fellow."
But Carey's greatest treats were upon the hunting expeditions made by
the beachcomber's blacks ashore to obtain fresh meat in the way of a
delicacy or two for their chief and something substantial for
themselves.
One day Carey was gazing rather disconsolately at the shore and
wondering when the time would come for him and his companions to be free
again, when Black Jack bounded to his side, making the boy start round,
to find the man in a menacing attitude, his teeth bare, eyes wide open
displaying scarcely anything but the whites, for he was squinting so
horribly that his pupils had disappeared behind his thick nose, while
the club he held was quivering as if he were about to strike. The
suddenness of the approach startled Carey for the moment, and he leaped
back, but the reaction came as quickly, and with doubled fist he rushed
at the black; but the latter was too quick, leaping aside, and Carey's
second attack, which took the form of a flying kick, was also
unsuccessful.
Black Jack's face was now covered with a series of good-tempered
wrinkles.
"Come 'long," he cried. "Kedge bird--wallaby. Be ticky-ticky, up a
tree."
"Be ticky-ticky?" said the boy, wonderingly.
"Ess. Come 'long; be ticky-ticky. Buzz-zz-uzz," he went, with a
wonderfully good imitation of the whirr of an insect's wings, while he
made his hand describe the dartings to and fro.
"Big fly so," he cried, and drawing his boomerang from the hair girdle,
he took a few steps, whirled it a moment or two, and then hurled it
towards the shore. "Buzz--hum!" he cried, and then he stood grinning
with delight at the boy's admiration of the gyrations made by the
curious implement.
At the first throw it seemed to Carey that it would drop as soon as the
force was exhausted into the sea, where the hard wood must cause it to
sink. But nothing of the kind; it went skimming over the water like
some gigantic insect, and at last made a graceful curve, rose up on high
quivering and fluttering, and came back till it was over the deck, and
then came twirling down.
"Big tree, ticky-ticky, fly dat how."
"Oh, I see; fly ticky-ticky," cried Carey. "Honey?"
"Good ticky-ticky," said the black, licking his fingers and smacking his
lips. "Come 'long."
"Yes, I'll come," cried the boy, and the next minute he was over the
side and in the boat, where half-a-dozen more of the blacks were waiting
and received him with a frantic shout of delight, flourishing their
paddles, which they plunged into the smooth water of the lagoon as soon
as Black Jack had dropped to his place; and away they went, with the
latter standing up beside Carey.
As they were passing round the bows, Bostock's head suddenly appeared
over the side, and at a sign from the boy the blacks ceased rowing.
"Where away, lad?" said the old sailor.
"Ashore, hunting wallabies or something."
"I say, young gentleman, is it safe to go alone with those chaps?"
"Oh, yes; there's nothing to mind. Haven't I been fishing with 'em lots
of times?"
"Yes, but that was on the water, my lad," said Bostock, shaking his
head.
"Bob--Bob, come along; kedge wallaby--snakum--ticky-ticky."
"Who's to do the cooking if I do?" growled Bostock.
"Cookie, come kedge ticky-ticky."
"No. I say, my lad, keep your weather eye open."
"Both of them, Bob. I'll take care."
The paddles were plunged in again, and the boat glided onward.
"I don't half like it," muttered Bostock. "That there boy's too
wentersome. S'pose they got hungry--they most always are--and took it
into their heads to make a fire. Ugh! They aren't to be trusted, but I
b'leeve they all like him and would be precious sorry when they got back
and Old King Cole asked where he was. There'd be a row and a bit o'
shooting, I dessay, for it's amazing, that it is, amazing, the way the
old vagabone has took to our lad. But I don't like his going off with
'em, and with nothing better than a bit of a toothpick of a knife.
Wouldn't be long before he got hold of a club, though, I know."
Bostock went back to his galley shaking his head, and at the same time
Carey was mentally shaking his own.
"An old stupid," he said. "I wish he hadn't said that. Just as if it
was likely that Black Jack or either of the others would hurt me without
Old King Cole was there to say `Css!' to them and hound them on.
Wouldn't hurt me, would you, Black Jack?" he said aloud.
"Hey? Wood hurt um?" cried the man, and he pulled the boy on one side,
dropped on his knees, and began to feel about the bottom of the canoe
with his hand. "No hurt."
"No; all right now," said Carey, smiling. "Here, Jackum, I want to
learn to throw the boomerang. Give me hold."
The boy made a snatch at the crescent-moon-like weapon, and got hold;
but the black seized it too, shouting, "No, no, no!" and his companions
began to shout what sounded like a protest.
"No, no throw. Go bottom."
"I should make it come back."
The black grinned knowingly.
"Jackum show soon. Jackum fro."
He sent the strange weapon flying on before them, and cleverly caught it
as it returned; but then he stuck it in his girdle again, shaking his
head.
"Go bottom," he said.
Carey was disappointed, but his attention was taken up directly by
something more exciting, for as the canoe glided along, with the
outrigger literally skipping over the water, the boy suddenly became
conscious of what seemed for the moment like another canoe of nearly the
same size, sunk beneath the surface and gliding along at the same speed.
For the moment he thought it must be the canoe's shadow somehow cast
beside them, but the next moment he grasped the fact that it was a great
fish, probably a shark, which had come in through the opening with the
last high tide, and was now on the prowl.
There was no doubt about it, for the blacks had seen it, and they
laughed as they saw their passenger shrink to the other side and lean
over towards the outrigger.
The next moment Jackum drew his attention with a touch, and began making
hideous grimaces at the creature, while the others began to shout and
were apparently calling it every opprobrious name that their limited
vocabulary supplied.
But the monster, which must have been some fourteen feet long, only rose
a little so that his black triangular fin appeared above the surface.
Jackum grinned, stooped, and picked up one of a bundle of spears which
lay along at the side, and handed it to the boy, signing to him to stand
up in the boat.
It was not much of a weapon, being only a straight bamboo sapling with
an ill-made point hardened in the fire.
"Gib big poke," cried the black.
"If I don't they'll think I'm afraid," thought Carey; so he seized the
spear, feeling not the slightest inclination for his task, and drove the
point down on the shark's back.
It was an unlucky stroke, for, instead of penetrating as intended, it
glided over the slimy skin, while, overbalancing himself in consequence
of meeting with no resistance, Carey to his horror found himself
following his stroke, and he would have plunged overboard had not a
muscular black arm darted like a great snake about his waist and plucked
him back. For a moment or two the boy gasped, but he recovered himself
directly.
"Shake hands, Jackum. Thankye."
The black grinned, and took the extended hand for a few seconds.
"Let's try again," said Carey; but the shark had sunk down out of sight.
"Ticklum," said the black, grinning. "Come soon."
Carey was disappointed, for he wanted to redeem his character, though it
was not an easy task to try and emulate the blacks with their own
weapons. But Jackum was right; it was not long before the great fish
re-appeared, now on the other side of the canoe, rising slowly till its
fin was above water, its intention being apparently to pick one of the
paddlers out for a meal.
His appearance there, however, was not approved of, the blacks by their
actions showing that they considered it highly probable that their
visitor would get entangled with the bamboos of the outrigger and
capsize the boat.
Jackum took the lead by snatching the spear from Carey, evidently
considering that the position required skilled instead of amateur
manipulation; and, as his fellows turned their paddles into choppers and
struck heavily at the shark's back, Jackum drove his spear down with all
his might.
It went home in spite of its clumsy make and miserable point, for in a
moment it was twitched out of the strong hands that held it, the water
came flying in a shower over Carey, consequent upon a tremendous blow
delivered by the fish's tail; then there was a violent eddy at the
boat's side, a great shovel-shaped head rose, and the monster shot out
of the water, rising several feet and falling with a crash across the
main boom of the outrigger, taking it down lower and lower, while Carey
clung to the other side of the boat. The water came creeping in over
the lower side, and they would, he felt, be taken down and lie at the
mercy of the enemy the blacks had tried to destroy.
In rushed the water faster and faster, and Carey looked towards the
shore to see how far it was to swim, when all at once the weight glided
off the great bamboo, which rose quickly, the boat was level again, but
half full of water, and the blacks chattered and grinned with delight,
as they began shovelling the water out on both sides with their paddles.
Jackum used his hands, but stopped short directly after to point.
"Tickum, tickum. Mumkull," he cried, and Carey made out the spear-shaft
performing some strange gyrations some twenty yards away, before it once
more disappeared.
As Carey owned afterwards to the doctor and Bostock, he still felt a
little white, and his heart was beating heavily. But it calmed down
rapidly as he felt that the worst that was to happen to him was to feel
his legs wet until the sun had dried his trousers and boots, while the
blacks chattered away, taking it as an every-day occurrence, rapidly
emptying the boat, and once more in high glee paddling hard for the
shore, where the great enjoyments of the day were to begin.