"Rory asked me," he said, "if I believed in the great sea-serpent. He
asked me with a kind of incredulous smile on his face, which spoke
volumes as to his own disbelief. Well, I am not sitting here to-night
to lay proof before you as to the actual existence of sea-serpents of a
monstrous size, but I beg to remind my friend here, that not only one or
two officers of the mercantile and fighting navies of the world, but
dozens have come forward, and given their oath, that such monsters were
seen by them, or by their whole crew, at certain times and in certain
latitudes and longitudes. And these men, both at the times of the awful
visitations, and at the times of their swearing to what they considered
facts, were neither intoxicated nor otherwise out of their minds.
"But my story is not about sea-serpents altogether, though it may throw
a new light on those submarine monsters.
"It is a strange, strange story--one told me years and years ago by my
gallant old grandfather. I remember, as though it were but yester
evening, the first time I heard him tell it.
"Grandfather, mates, had at this time retired from the army. He was of
an old Scottish family, that had been crushed at Culloden, so that with
the exception of the half-pay a stingy government granted him, he had
little else to live upon. He resided in a pretty little cottage about a
quarter of a mile from our house, and it used to be my delight to visit
him in the gloaming. I would go quietly in, and seat myself on a stool
in a corner, and wait to be recognised. By-and-bye I would lead him to
speak of the olden times, and of the battles and sieges by sea and land
he had taken part in.
"But this story I am going to tell you he has repeated to me again and
again, in different words maybe, but the facts were always the same.
"It was in the days of the American war, the war of freedom and
independence, which, to my way of thinking, are the birthrights of every
man born, and of every nation as well. England, mates, did not fight in
an over-gentlemanly fashion in those days, and I think it is a stain on
our country's escutcheon that the Indians of the Far West were armed and
employed at all.
"But this is not what I am sitting here to discuss, only my grandfather
and Tom Turner, a junior of his, both belonged in those days to Pontius
Pilate's guards [the 1st, or Royal Scots Regiment], and were stationed
at the same place.
"Though Tom was a few years younger than grand-dad, they were
inseparables, so to speak, and always in the same 'ploy, whatever that
'ploy might be. To say that they were both Highlanders is equivalent to
telling you they were both fond of field sports; and when one day Wild
Eye, Chief of the Cheebuk Indians, promised them some first-rate hunting
if they could get leave for a few days, you may be sure they were not
long in applying for it--ay, and obtaining it, too; for young Tom Turner
had a wonderful tongue for getting round his colonel, and, as the troops
were in garrison, the services of these officers wouldn't be much
missed.
"It was a lovely morning when they set out on their journey west,
mounted on three half-bred horses, as fleet as the wind, and just as
independent.
"Now it would seem that hiring Indians was a game that in those days two
could play at; and though the honour of the idea should be awarded to
the British, as having been the inventors, as it were, still
tit-for-tat, you know, and everything is fair in war, so the Yankees
were not far behind.
"There were, in reality, two different sets of Indians on the warpath,
both bent upon getting as many scalps as possible for the decoration of
their wigwams, for the Christmas season, as one might say.
"This fact made travelling a very risky kind of a business.
"The first day passed over without almost any kind of adventure, only it
was summer on the prairie they were passing over, and there was no shade
of bush nor tree, and the insects were almost as much of a torture as
the sun's rays.
"Old Wild Eye, the chief, must have been a clever fellow, indeed, for on
this rolling plain there was neither road nor track, except the trails
of wild animals; to have followed those would have led my grand-dad a
queer dance.
"When the sun went down at last, glaring red through the haze of blue,
it got almost cold, but they dared not think of lighting a fire, because
of the hostile Indians, so they hobbled their nags, ate their supper,
and sat huddled up in their blankets beneath the stars till long past
twelve. They were listening to Wild Eye's adventures on the warpath.
"Wild Eye was a border chief, and friendly with the British; in fact, he
had been once to Quebec, and so considered himself about half a
Christian. Wild Eye was as bald as the back of my watch, and had no
more teeth than a tin whistle. He had scars innumerable, only one ear,
and about half a nose, for he had been twice put to the torture, and
saved as if by a miracle.
"His scalp, he told my grand-dad, hung in many wigwams. The fact is,
Wild Eye wore a wig, and when he lost one in warfare, he wore a morsel
of buffalo hide until he was able to negotiate with his barber in
Ontario. Each wig was paid for not in coin but in land. Each wig cost
Wild Eye twenty acres of territory, and they say that the descendants of
his barber are millionaires to-day.
"But my grand-dad and his friend fell sound asleep at last, and not even
the presence of a grizzly bear, who came round to snuff after the
remains of the supper, awoke them until the sun was so high that it
nearly hardened the whites of their eyes, as heat does the white of an
egg.
"`I say, John,' said Tom Turner to my grand-dad, `we've got five days'
leave. I feel so happy, that I think we ought to make it a fortnight.'
"But grand-dad laughed. `No,' he said, `that wouldn't be fair, Tom.
Let us stick to our furlough, and be back in five days if we can.'
"About evening on the second day they bade farewell to the rolling
prairie, and plunged into a deep ravine, and bivouacked in a pine-clad
gorge near the banks of a stream. This river was teeming with fish of
the most delicate flavour. They caught enough for supper, and once more
settled themselves to listen to the tales of the Indian chief.
"There were strange, unearthly noises in the forest that night which my
grand-dad could not Understand--shrieks and yells and awful howlings,
but he dozed off at last and dreamt he was head keeper in a kind of
pandemonium.
"Next morning sport began in earnest, for they found they were near the
head-quarters of the grizzly and wilder cinnamon bear.
"Next to our friend the Arctic Bruin, there is no creature in the world
with which a man has less chance in a fair stand-up fight than with the
cinnamon. I don't say, mates, but that any bear will prefer shuffling
off to coming to close quarters, but don't you catch a grizzly or
cinnamon unawares behind a rock or a bush. I tell you that the only
comfort you can have at that awful moment is the memory that you've made
your will, and don't owe your tailor anything to signify.
"Tom Turner was following up a grizzly, who was well on ahead, so he had
eyes for nothing else; but on rounding a point on the hill-top, he was
startled with a roar that went through him like a rip-saw, and found
himself face to jowl with a cinnamon bear. Tom sprang back so suddenly
that he burst his waistcoat buttons. His musket went off at the same
moment, and Bruin made a spring to hug Tom Turner. The bullet found a
billet in the beast's neck, but didn't stop his way, and next moment the
bear and Tom both were tumbling down, down, down over a precipice. The
bear fell on the top of a rock, and was killed. Tom alighted on the top
of a juniper tree, and wasn't a bit the worse, for Tom was a tough lad.
"There were three or four bears altogether killed that forenoon, and I
daresay a good many more frightened. However, about one o'clock the
three friends were seated on the top of a breezy eminence overlooking
the bonnie glen, and in sight of their horses, while they enjoyed their
lunch or tiffin.
"`What a lovely day!' said Tom, as he lay at full length on the
greensward. `How wildly sublime those hills are! Wooded almost to the
summits everyone of them; and look, John, at that river far beneath
yonder, like a silver thread winding away through the greenery of the
forest. You're not looking, John.'
"`I'm looking at something else,' said my grand-dad.
"Ugh!" cried the Indian chief, springing to his feet, seizing his gun,
and pointing with it to a hill-top beyond the ravine.
"There were figures there--dark, creeping figures, no bigger apparently
than coyotes.
"They were Indians."