Everything was so new to me that, on embarking at Marseilles, I was
never tired of inspecting the large steamer, and trying, with only
moderate success, to talk to the French sailors, who, on learning our
destination, were very civil; but, after the first day or two, began to
joke me about never coming back any more.
It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to
talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all,
about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet
high, and would look upon me, they assured me, as a _bonne bouche_.
The third day out on the beautiful blue water, as some of the passengers
had guns out, and were shooting at the sea-birds for amusement merely, a
practice that I should have thought very cruel but for the fact that
they never once hit anything, Uncle Dick came up to me on the poop deck
and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Now, Nat," he said, "there's plenty of room out here for a rifle ball
to go humming away as far as it likes without danger to anyone; so get
out your rifle and you shall have a practice."
"At the sea-gulls, uncle?" I said.
"No, no; nonsense!" he said; "we don't shoot sea-gulls with a rifle. I
shall start you with a target."
"A target, uncle?" I said; "but if you do, we shall leave it all behind
in a very short time."
"To be sure we shall," he replied, laughing; "and then we'll have
another."
I ran down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to go
on deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but I
got over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for me
with half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown out
tightly, while the bottles were empty and firmly corked.
"Now, Nat," he said, "here are your targets, and I reckon upon your
having half a dozen shots at each before the steamer takes us too far
away, unless you manage to sink it sooner."
I looked at my uncle to see if he was laughing at me, but he was quite
serious, and, in obedience to his order, I loaded and stood ready.
"Now, look here, my boy," he said; "this will be rather a difficult
task, for both your target and you are in motion. So you must aim as
well as you can. I should draw trigger just as the bladder is rising."
"But how shall we know if I hit it?"
"You are not very likely to hit it, Nat," he said smiling; "but if you
do, the bladder will collapse--the bottle be shivered to fragments, and
sink. Now let us see."
It made me feel nervous to see so many people collect about me, one and
all eager to witness my skill, and I knew enough French to understand a
good many of their remarks. Some said I must be a very skilful shot,
others that I could not shoot at all; and one way and another they
disconcerted me so that, when my uncle threw the first bladder over the
side, and I saw it floating away, I felt so confused that I let it get
some distance before I fired.
"Reload," said my uncle; and I did so, and fired again.
"Reload," he said; and, having obeyed him, I waited till the bladder was
on the top of a wave, and again fired without result.
"Again," said my uncle; "don't hesitate, and fire sharply."
The bladder was now getting a long way astern and looking very small, so
small that I knew I should not hit it, and consequently I felt no
surprise that it should go floating away.
"Don't lose time, Nat," my uncle continued, just as if it was quite a
matter of course that I should go on missing shot after shot.
So once more I prepared to fire, and as I did so I saw that two of the
French passengers had their telescopes fixed upon the object at which,
after taking very careful aim, speck as it seemed, I fired.
To my utter astonishment, as the smoke rose I saw no bladder was
floating on the waves, a fact of which the lookers-on had already
informed me by a round of applause.
"He would not hit them when they were close," cried one passenger. "I
said, he would not try. It was un grand shot, messieurs, un coup
merveilleux."
I felt scarlet in the face, and grew the more and more ashamed as first
one and then another insisted upon shaking hands with me.
"Now, Nat," said my uncle in a low voice, "after that you will lose your
character if you do not hit some more."
"Pray, don't send out another, uncle," I whispered.
"Why not, boy? What does it matter if you do miss? Keep on practising,
and never mind what people say. Are you ready?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Fire, then, as soon as you get a good view of the bladder."
I waited until it was about forty yards away, and rising slowly to the
top of a wave, when, calculating the distance as well as I could, I
fired, and the bladder disappeared.
I could not believe it, and expected each moment to see it come back to
the surface; but no, there was no bladder visible; and, having reloaded,
my uncle sent another afloat, bidding me wait till it was farther away
before I fired.
I obeyed him and missed. Fired again and missed, but the third time the
bladder collapsed and sank, and my reputation as a marksman was made.
The French passengers would have petted and spoiled me had not my uncle
interfered; and when we were once more alone he began to talk of my
success.
"You quite exceeded anything I expected, Nat," he said smiling. "How
you managed it, my boy, I cannot tell. The first time I set it down to
pure accident; but when you repeated it again and again, all I can say,
my boy, is that your eyes must be wonderfully good, and your aim and
judgment even better. I doubt with all my practice whether I could have
been more successful."
"I think it must have been chance, uncle," I said, "for I seemed to have
no time to aim, and the vessel heaved up so just then."
"No, my boy," he replied, "it was not chance, but the result in a great
measure of your practice with your gun; but you will not always shoot so
well as that. When you come to be out with me in the wilds of one of
the islands we visit, and have perhaps been tramping miles through rough
forest, you will find it hard work to hit the object at which you aim."
"But it will be easier to shoot from the ground than from on shipboard,
uncle, will it not?"
"For some things yes, my boy, for others no. But wait a bit, Nat, and
we shall see."
The practice was kept up all through our voyage, and I became quite an
adept at breaking floating bottles and other objects that were sent over
the side, for the bladders soon came to an end; but our voyage was very
uneventful. It was always enjoyable, for there was so much that was
fresh to see. I never complained about the heat, which was very great,
although people were lying about under awnings, while I used to get into
the chains, or the rigging below the bowsprit, so as to gaze down into
the wonderfully clear water and watch the dolphins and bonita as they
darted through the sunlit depths with such ease and grace.
Sometimes I have wished that I could be a fish, able with a sweep or two
of my powerful tail to dart myself through the water just as I pleased,
or float at any depth, keeping up with the huge steamer as it was driven
on.
Then a change would come over me, and I would think to myself: Well, I'm
very glad I'm not a fish; for just as I would be watching some lovely
mackerel-like fellow with a flashing back of mottled blue and purple,
some monster ten times his size would make a dart at him and engulf him
in his capacious throat. And as I watched the larger fish seize their
food, it seemed to me that once they could get within easy range they
seemed to suck their prey into their jaws, drawing it in with the great
rush of water they sent through their gills.
It was not tempting at such times and above all when one used to see a
thin grey fellow, six or eight feet long, seeming to sneak by the side
of the ship, or just astern, where there was an eddy. Every now and
then it would turn half over and show the pale under parts as it made a
snatch at something that looked good to eat; and after a good many tries
the sailors managed to catch one by means of a hook baited with a piece
of ham that had been condemned as high.
It was only about six feet long, and when it lay on the wet deck
thrashing about with its tail I thought that after all a shark was not
such a dangerous-looking creature as I expected, and I said so to my
uncle.
"Think not, Nat?" he said.
"Why, no, uncle, I don't think I should be afraid of a shark; I think I
could catch such a fellow as that with a rod and line."
"Ah! Nat, some of them run up to fifteen or twenty feet in length," he
said; "and they are awfully savage brutes. Such a one as this would be
enough to kill a man."
"He don't look like it, uncle," I said. "Why, look here!"
I ran to where the shark lay, and stooping down, seized it with both
hands by the thin part just before where the tail forked, meaning to
give it a shake and drag the brute along the deck; but just as I got
tight hold the creature seemed to send a wave down its spine, and with
one flip I was sent staggering across the deck to fall heavily at full
length, the crew and passengers around roaring with laughter at my
discomfiture.
I was so angry and mortified that I jumped up, opened my great
jack-knife, and was rushing at the shark, when my uncle laid his hand
upon my arm.
"Don't be foolish, Nat, but take your lesson like a man. You will not
despise the strength of a shark for the future."
"Why, it was like touching a great steel spring, uncle," I said.
"If anything I should say that the backbone of a shark has more power in
it when set in motion than a steel spring, Nat," he said. "There, now,
our friend is helpless, and we can examine him in peace."
For, after thrashing the deck with a series of tremendous blows with his
tail, the shark had his quietus given to him with a few blows of a
hatchet, and as he lay upon the deck my uncle pointed out to me the
peculiarity of the monster's structure, and after we had examined his
nasty sharp triangular teeth in the apparently awkwardly placed mouth, I
was shown how it was that a shark had such wonderful power of propelling
itself through the water, for in place of having an ordinary fin-like
tail, made up of so many bones with a membrane between, the shark's
spine is continued right along to the extremity of the upper curve of
its propeller, the other curve being comparatively small.
The flying-fish in the Red Sea have been described too often for it to
be necessary for me to say anything about the beauty of these fishy
swallows, but we saw hundreds of them dart out of the sea, skim along
for a distance, and then drop in again. Then there were glimpses had in
the deep clear blue--for that was the colour I found the Red Sea--of
fishes with scales of orange, vermilion, and gold, bright as the
gorgeous sunsets that dyed sea and sky of such wondrous hues evening
after evening before darkness fell all at once, and the great stars,
brighter, bigger, and clearer than I had ever seen them before, turned
the heavens into a vast ocean of gems.
Day and night seemed to me to follow one another with wonderful
rapidity, till one morning, as the steamer was panting and throbbing on
its way, my uncle pointed to what looked like a low distant haze far
away on our right.
"Do you see those mountains, Nat?" he said.
"Mountains, uncle! Are these mountains?"
"Yes, my boy, in a land that I could find it in my heart to visit, only
that is not quite wild enough for our purpose."
"What place is it, then?" I said, gazing eagerly at the faint distant
line.
"Sumatra, Nat;" and as he spoke the long-shaped island, so familiar on
the maps at school, rose before my eyes, and with it came Java, Celebes,
Borneo, and New Guinea, places that were before long to be the objects
of our quest.