TATTOOING
The spoils from this expedition now amounted to such a quantity that it
was desirable that the explorers should return to Moulmein, and ship
them off to England.
They had the skins of many deer, sambhurs, wild cats, and various
smaller animals, as well as those of the leopard and tiger. There were
many orchids, some beautiful butterflies, and the skins of rare birds;
curios had been picked up in the native villages, and specimens of the
ornamental woods which grew in the forests.
Ralph had a famous supply of gay feathers, and other articles, for his
mother and sister; and sundry small things which he knew would give
pleasure to them and the younger children, though he had no money
wherewith to purchase articles of much use or value.
Their load was more cumbersome than heavy, but it filled up the
bullock-gharrie so completely that they determined to stop nowhere on
the road. They would return as fast as possible to Moulmein.
They jogged along therefore very cheerily, talking over their
adventures, and planning what they would do upon their longer journey.
"How odd it seems," said Ralph, "to think that this time last year I was
only going about the town in Liverpool, backwards and forwards to
school, and never thinking about all the strange sights I was to see so
soon. And now, it seems as if I had always known these places. Things I
never knew of then, surprise me now no longer. This tattooing, for
instance. How queer I thought it at first, and now I never think about
it."
He pointed, as he spoke, to a Burman who passed them, gorgeously
tattooed.
"Tattooing is not uncommon among seamen in England," said Mr. Gilchrist.
"Is it, Wills?"
"No, no, zur, it b'ain't. 'Tis a very useful thing too, to hev' a mark
set upon a chield so as he can be telled, dead or alive, at any time."
"Ah! it be so," said Osborn. "I mind when I wor a boy hearing tell about
a young gentleman as were a midshipman in the navy, Danby his name was.
He was in a frigate, cruising about in the South Seas; and going in
command of a boat's crew one day to get water and fruit from one of
those cannibal islands, the beggars set upon them, and murdered them
all, as 'twas said. The frigate sailed away, after revenging the murders
by a broadside poured in on the island, and reported the whole boat's
crew dead.
"Twenty year passed away, and the affair was nigh about forgotten, when
an English merchantman was sailing near the same island again, and a man
leaped into the water, off a rock, and struck out, swimming for dear
life towards the ship.
"They lowered a boat, and took him on board.
"'Who be you?' asked the captain.
"'Charles Danby,' said he, speaking good English, for all that he was
tattooed all over his face like a native.
"'How did 'ee get theer?' asked the skipper.
"'I wor a midshipman on board His Majesty's frigate _Achilles_,' saith
he. 'I wor sent in command of a boat's crew to get water, and they set
upon us, and killed all but me. One of the women took a fancy to me, and
hid me. She would have me marry her, but I didn't seem to care about it,
and stuck out so long as I could.'"
"Poor soul," said Mr. Gilchrist.
Ralph laughed. "I'd like to see the dusky bride who would wed _me_
against my will," cried he. "She'd soon find that she had caught a
tartar."
"It worn't no laughing matter for _he_," said Osborn. "They there
savages, they showed him his comrades, brought up one by one, and forced
him to look on while they murdered them, roasted them, and _eat_ them.
They'd ha' served him the same but for the woman protecting him, and she
threatened him that if he wouldn't have her she'd hand him over to the
cannibals, who were always coming to look at him, and saying what a nice
tender morsel he'd be, for he was so young and fair and rosy."
"I've heard of a _man_," said the incorrigible Ralph, still laughing,
"who said, when he was first married, that he was so fond of his wife
that he could have eaten her; and, afterwards, that he often wished he
had."
"You go along, Maister Ralph," quoth old Wills. "What should a babe, the
likes of you, know about such things."
Ralph made a face at his old friend, and begged Osborn to tell him the
end of the midshipman.
"Well, 'ee doan't deserve as I should," said Osborn; "but, howsomever,
the boy gave in. He wor but a babe hisself,--only fourteen,--and life
was sweet to him even at that cost; so he took the woman, and tried to
do his best with her, though it was sorry work. They tattooed him all
over, face and all, to make him look as like themselves as they could;
and he wore no clothes, but lived just like them. He got to do so
exactly like them that he could pick up a fishhook from the ground with
his toes, just like they could; and he had some children, and was looked
upon in time just like the rest.
"He lived twenty years like this, and never saw a British ship, nor a
white face, nor a sign of home all that time, for the island was an
out-of-the-way one. Then, one day, all to once he saw that there
merchantman in the offing. He wor a-fishing by himself, and he watched
the vessel sailing nearer and nearer, old half-forgotten thoughts of
home, and friends, and old England, cropping up clearer and clearer
every minute; and with them a yearning for them, tearing at his heart
like, till he could bear it no longer. He just jumped into the sea, and
swam off to the ship.
"The poor fellow was so afraid of being caught and claimed again by his
family in the island, that the skipper changed his tack, and sailed away
from it, so he was brought home in safety.
"Then came the difficulty of proving himself to be Charles Danby, for
nobody could recognise him. He'd left home a rosy-faced, curly-haired
lad of thirteen; he came back looking like a South-Sea islander of
thirty-four.
"His father was dead, but his mother was still living, and she did not
know him all to once, nor none of his friends.
"But it wor no such tale as Tichborne's. He remembered all sorts of
things that none but he could know,--people's names, old jokes, old
stories, people in the village dead and gone, things that had happened
at school.
"It was for ever, 'Where is the old cabinet that did stand here?' 'What
has become of the gamekeeper's boy, Jack?' and so on.
"He soon satisfied his mother, his old nurse, and such like; but there
was some money to come to him, and it was necessary to prove to the law
that he was the right man to have it, and that was a harder matter.
"'Had he no mark upon him?' asked the lawyer of his mother.
"'Ay,' said she, 'he had a small mole on his cheek.'
"But that was either gone, or covered up with the tattooing, and could
not be seen, nor could they think of anything else.
"'I was tattooed C. D. on my right arm,' saith he, 'first time I went to
sea. C. D. it were, and the Union Jack, but it wore out. The natives
didn't tattoo my arm there, because it wor done already, but it has not
lasted like their marks have done. See, here is the bare spot.'
"Sure enough, there was a bare round place among the marks on his arm,
but no flag nor letters wor to be seen. He hunted up the very shipmate
as had done it, and who swore to having done it, and showed the
fellow-mark on his own arm, only with the letters different, for each
had taken the initials of his own name, though the pattern they said was
the same in both.
"'Ay!' saith Mr. Danby, 'I mind what an arm I gave you, and how you
swore at me for going so deep. You mocked at me for holloing out while
you did me, and I vowed I'd make you holloa too.'
"'So 'ee did,' said the other officer. 'What did 'ee do it with?'
"'With three big darning-needles out from a red-leather huswife that my
poor dear sister Mary gave me for a keep-sake when I went away. It had a
looking-glass in it, and little blue flowers worked inside. She told me
to mend my stockings when I was at sea, but it's not many stockings as
I've worn.'
"'I have the huswife now,' said his mother; 'it came back among his
things. Many a time did poor Mary cry over it before she died. She used
to say, "He minded what I told him about his stockings, mother, for the
darning needles are gone."'
"'We lashed them together, threaded through the eyes with a bit of
wire,' said Mr. Danby.
"'So we did,' said his friend.
"Well, this was all very good, but the marks wor gone, you see, so no
proof in law. Just then the doctor came in, and 'What are you saying?'
asked he. So they told him.
"'Show me your arm,' said he; and Danby put it out.
"The doctor took and rubbed it hard, till it wor red as a lobster.
"'Hold hard, doctor! you'll rub down to the bone.'
"But the doctor knew what he was doing, and when the place was well
scrubbed, 'What do 'ee call _that_?' saith he, pointing for the lawyer
to see.
"There was, quite plain, the Jack and C. D., inside a circle of little
dots, all in white marks upon the reddened skin. It was exactly like the
blue marks upon the other man's arm, except for the initials being
different, but hadn't been done so deep, so the gunpowder had worn out
by degrees.
"They gave him his money, but he didn't live long to enjoy it. He was
quite unfitted to live like a Christian after so many years of savage
life, and civilisation killed him."
"Poor fellow," sighed Mr. Gilchrist; "it is a strange story."
Wills then began to relate some of his reminiscences. He never liked to
be out-done by Osborn.
"Two or three voyages ago," said he, "we had a black cook on board; and
when we were at the office, being shipped, some talk went on about
tattooing. One of the young gentlemen was entering our names in the
ship's register, and a sailor was showing his arms and chest the while.
He was beautifully tattooed with red and blue both. He had the royal
arms on his chest, and a girl, skipping, with a wreath of flowers round
her; and his arms were all over letters and anchors and crosses, and
what not.
"'Is any other of you so grand as this?' asked the young gentleman.
"Two or three had marks, but none so good, and he turned to the nigger.
"'You don't need mark of mouth, Sambo, I suppose?' said he.
"'Me marked though, massa,' said the darkie, grinning from ear to
ear,--'me marked. Me fall in fire when boy, and the mark of burn never
gone. Scored, massa, me was,--branded by hot bar. Golly! it were bad.'
"And he rolled up his sleeve, and showed the scars of a terrible burn.
"Well, we sailed in bad weather, and met with an awful storm two days
after. The ship was pooped, the name-board washed away, and much damage
done. We managed to put it to rights though, and went on our way; but
others were less lucky. It was off the coast of Wicklow, and in that
same storm, another ship went down with all hands; and some of the
drowned men were washed up among the wreckage, _and our name-board_,
with '_Osprey_, Liverpool' painted on it quite plain.
"Of course the word reached 'Herfords' that it was we that was lost, but
the rig of some of the spars washed up, and the colour of the paint, did
not agree. One of the dead seamen was a negro, but another of them was
reported to have had two fingers of his left hand gone at some former
time; and though there was a negro among us, and both were reported
fine, tall, big fellows, we had none among our jack-tars maimed in the
hand.
"So the young gentleman that shipped the crew was sent over, with
Lloyd's agent, to the Wicklow coast, to see if he could identify the
corpses. Some two or three days had passed, while letters had been
written backwards and forwards, and as the poor fellows had been sadly
knocked about among the wreckage, there was no chance of recognising
them, and they'd all been buried before the young clerk came.
"'Tis a pity as it's so,' said he, talking to Lloyd's man. 'If he were
not underground, I'd have known the negro, because he had the big scar
from an old burn on the inside of his left arm, reaching nearly from his
elbow to his wrist.'
"'Say you so,' said Lloyd's agent, 'then we'll have him dug up again.'
"The young gentleman did not half like that, but it was done, and he had
to be there, with result that the dead negro had no mark at all on his
arm, so could not be the same man.
"Captain Rogers was chief mate on that voyage; and your ma, zur, was
prettily relieved when she heard this, for it was a long time before we
was able to report ourselves. News did not fly so soon in thiccee times
as now."
"Well," said Ralph, "the outcome of all this is that I had better get
tattooed as soon as I can. Will you do it for me, Wills?"
"Better wait till 'ee du get to Rangoon, maister, for 'twill make your
arm very sore for some days."
"No, no, Denham; don't be foolish," said Mr. Gilchrist.
Ralph laughed, and the party stopped for their mid-day meal, which
changed the conversation.