Chapter 2: A Brush With Privateers.
Chapter 3: The Rajah.
Chapter 4: First Impressions.
Chapter 5: War Declared.
Chapter 6: A Perilous Adventure.
Chapter 7: Besieged.
Chapter 8: The Invasion Of Mysore.
Chapter 9: News Of The Captive.
Chapter 10: In Disguise.
Chapter 11: A Useful Friend.
Chapter 12: A Tiger In A Zenana.
Chapter 13: Officers Of The Palace.
Chapter 14: A Surprise.
Chapter 15: Escape.
Chapter 16: The Journey.
Chapter 17: Back At Tripataly.
Chapter 18: A Narrow Escape.
Chapter 19: Found At Last.
Chapter 20: The Escape.
Chapter 21: Home.
Preface.
While some of our wars in India are open to the charge that they were
undertaken on slight provocation, and were forced on by us in order
that we might have an excuse for annexation, our struggle with Tippoo
Saib was, on the other hand, marked by a long endurance of wrong, and
a toleration of abominable cruelties perpetrated upon Englishmen and
our native allies. Hyder Ali was a conqueror of the true Eastern type.
He was ambitious in the extreme. He dreamed of becoming the Lord of
the whole of Southern India. He was an able leader, and, though
ruthless where it was his policy to strike terror, he was not cruel
from choice.
His son, Tippoo, on the contrary, revelled in acts of the most
abominable cruelty. It would seem that he massacred for the very
pleasure of massacring, and hundreds of British captives were killed
by famine, poison, or torture, simply to gratify his lust for murder.
Patience was shown towards this monster until patience became a fault,
and our inaction was naturally ascribed by him to fear. Had firmness
been shown by Lord Cornwallis, when Seringapatam was practically in
his power, the second war would have been avoided and thousands of
lives spared. The blunder was a costly one to us, for the work had to
be done all over again, and the fault of Lord Cornwallis retrieved by
the energy and firmness of the Marquis of Wellesley.
The story of the campaign is taken from various sources, and the
details of the treatment of the prisoners from the published
narratives of two officers who effected their escape from prisons.
G. A. Henty.
Chapter 1: A Lost Father.
"There is no saying, lad, no saying at all. All I know is that your
father, the captain, was washed ashore at the same time as I was. As
you have heard me say, I owed my life to him. I was pretty nigh gone
when I caught sight of him, holding on to a spar. Spent as I was, I
managed to give a shout loud enough to catch his ear. He looked round.
I waved my hand and shouted, 'Goodbye, Captain!' Then I sank lower and
lower, and felt that it was all over, when, half in a dream, I heard
your father's voice shout, 'Hold on, Ben!' I gave one more struggle,
and then I felt him catch me by the arm. I don't remember what
happened, until I found myself lashed to the spar beside him.
"'That is right, Ben,' he said cheerily, as I held up my head; 'you
will do now. I had a sharp tussle to get you here, but it is all
right. We are setting inshore fast. Pull yourself together, for we
shall have a rough time of it in the surf. Anyhow, we will stick
together, come what may.'
"As the waves lifted us up, I saw the coast, with its groves of
coconuts almost down to the water's edge, and white sheets of surf
running up high on the sandy beach. It was not more than a hundred
yards away, and the captain sang out,
"'Hurrah! There are some natives coming down. They will give us a
hand.'
"Next time we came up on a wave, he said, 'When we get close, Ben, we
must cut ourselves adrift from this spar, or it will crush the life
out of us; but before we do that, I will tie the two of us together.'
"He cut a bit of rope from the raffle hanging from the spar, and tied
one end round my waist and the other round his own, leaving about five
fathoms loose between us.
"'There,' he shouted in my ear. 'If either of us gets chucked well up,
and the natives get a hold of him, the other must come up, too. Now
mind, Ben, keep broadside on to the wave if you can, and let it roll
you up as far as it will take you. Then, when you feel that its force
is spent, stick your fingers and toes into the sand, and hold on like
grim death.'
"Well, we drifted nearer and nearer until, just as we got to the point
where the great waves tumbled over, the captain cut the lashings and
swam a little away, so as to be clear of the spar. Then a big wave
came towering up. I was carried along like a straw in a whirlpool.
Then there was a crash that pretty nigh knocked the senses out of me.
I do not know what happened afterwards. It was a confusion of white
water rushing past and over me. Then for a moment I stopped, and at
once made a clutch at the ground that I had been rolling over. There
was a big strain, and I was hauled backwards as if a team of wild
horses were pulling at me. Then there was a jerk, and I knew nothing
more, till I woke up and found myself on the sands, out of reach of
the surf.
"Your father did not come to for half an hour. He had been hurt a bit
worse than I had, but at last he came round.
"Well, we were kept three months in a sort of castle place; and then
one day a party of chaps, with guns and swords, came into the yard
where we were sitting. The man, who seemed the head of the fellows who
had been keeping us prisoners, walked up with one who was evidently an
officer over the chaps as had just arrived. He looked at us both, and
then laid his hand on the captain. Then the others came up.
"The captain had just time to say, 'We are going to be parted, Ben.
God bless you! If ever you get back, give my love to my wife, and tell
her what has happened to me, and that she must keep up her heart, for
I shall make a bolt of it the first time I get a chance.'
"The next day, I was taken off to a place they call Calicut. There I
stopped a year, and then the rajah of the place joined the English
against Tippoo, who was lord of all the country, and I was released. I
had got, by that time, to talk their lingo pretty well, though I have
forgotten it all now, and I had found out that the chaps who had taken
your father away were a party sent down by Tippoo, who, having heard
that two Englishmen had been cast on shore, had insisted upon one of
them being handed over to him.
"It is known that a great many of the prisoners in Tippoo's hands have
been murdered in their dungeons. He has sworn, over and over again,
that he has no European prisoners, but every one knows that he has
numbers of them in his hands. Whether the captain is one of those who
have been murdered, or whether he is still in one of Tippoo's
dungeons, is more than I or any one else can say."
"Well, as I have told you, Ben, that is what we mean to find out."
"I know that is what your mother has often said, lad, but it seems to
me that you have more chance of finding the man in the moon than you
have of learning whether your father is alive, or not."
"Well, we are going to try, anyhow, Ben. I know it's a difficult job,
but Mother and I have talked it over, ever since you came home with
the news, three years ago; so I have made up my mind, and nothing can
change me. You see, I have more chances than most people would have.
Being a boy is all in my favour; and then, you know, I talk the
language just as well as English."
"Yes, of course that is a pull, and a big one; but it is a desperate
undertaking, lad, and I can't say as I see how it is to be done."
"I don't see either, Ben, and I don't expect to see until we get out
there; but, desperate or not, Mother and I are going to try."
Dick Holland, the speaker, was a lad of some fifteen years of age. His
father, who was captain of a fine East Indiaman, had sailed from
London when he was nine, and had never returned. No news had been
received of the ship after she touched at the Cape, and it was
supposed that she had gone down with all hands; until, nearly three
years later, her boatswain, Ben Birket, had entered the East India
Company's office, and reported that he himself, and the captain, had
been cast ashore on the territories of the Rajah of Coorg; the sole
survivors, as far as he knew, of the Hooghley.
After an interview with the Directors, he had gone straight to the
house at Shadwell inhabited by Mrs. Holland. She had left there, but
had removed to a smaller one a short distance away, where she lived
upon the interest of the sum that her husband had invested from his
savings, and from a small pension granted to her by the Company.
Mrs. Holland was a half caste, the daughter of an English woman who
had married a young rajah. Her mother's life had been a happy one; but
when her daughter had reached the age of sixteen, she died, obtaining
on her deathbed the rajah's consent that the girl should be sent to
England to be educated, while her son, who was three years younger,
should remain with his father.
Over him she had exercised but little influence. He had been brought
up like the sons of other native princes, and, save for his somewhat
light complexion, the English blood in his veins would never have been
suspected.
Margaret, on the other hand, had been under her mother's care, and as
the latter had always hoped that the girl would, at any rate for a
time, go to her family in England, she had always conversed with her
in that language, and had, until her decreasing strength rendered it
no longer possible, given her an English education.
In complexion and appearance, she took far more after her English
mother than the boy had done; and, save for her soft, dark eyes, and
glossy, jet-black hair, might have passed as of pure English blood.
When she sailed, it was with the intention of returning to India, in
the course of a few years; but this arrangement was overthrown by the
fact that on the voyage, John Holland, the handsome young first mate
of the Indiaman, completely won her heart, and they were married a
fortnight after the vessel came up the Thames.
The matter would not have been so hurried had not a letter she posted
on landing, to her mother's sister, who had promised her a home,
received an answer written in a strain which determined her to yield,
at once, to John Holland's pressing entreaties that they should be
married without delay. Her aunt had replied that she had consented to
overlook the conduct of her mother, in uniting herself to a native,
and to receive her for a year at the rectory; but that her behaviour,
in so precipitately engaging herself to a rough sailor, rendered it
impossible to countenance her. As she stated that she had come over
with a sum sufficient to pay her expenses, while in England, she
advised her to ask the captain--who, by the way, must have grossly
neglected his duties by allowing an intimacy between her and his
mate--to place her in some school, where she would be well looked
after until her return to India.
The Indian blood in Margaret's veins boiled fiercely, and she wrote
her aunt a letter which caused that lady to congratulate herself on
the good fortune that had prevented her from having to receive, under
her roof, a girl of so objectionable and violent a character.
Although the language that John Holland used concerning this letter
was strong, indeed, he was well satisfied, as he had foreseen that it
was not probable Margaret's friends would have allowed her to marry
him, without communicating with her father; and that the rajah might
have projects of his own for her disposal. He laid the case before the
captain, who placed her in charge of his wife, until the marriage took
place.
Except for the long absences of her husband, Margaret's life had been
a very happy one, and she was looking forward to the time when, after
another voyage, he would be able to give up his profession and settle
down upon his savings.
When months passed by, and no news came of the Hooghley having reached
port, Mrs. Holland at once gave up her house and moved into a smaller
one; for, although her income would have been sufficient to enable her
to remain where she was, she determined to save every penny she was
able, for the sake of her boy. She was possessed of strong common
sense and firmness of character, and when Ben Birket returned with his
tale, he was surprised at the composure with which she received it.
"I have always," she said, "had a conviction that John was still
alive, and have not allowed Dick to think of his father as dead; and
now I believe, as firmly as before, that someday John will be restored
to me. I myself can do nothing towards aiding him. A woman can do
little, here. She can do nothing in India, save among her own people.
I shall wait patiently, for a time. It may be that this war will
result in his release. But in the meantime, I shall continue to
prepare Dick to take up the search for him, as soon as he is old
enough.
"I hear, once a year, from my brother, who is now rajah; and he will
be able to aid my boy, in many ways. However, for a time I must be
patient and wait. I have learnt to wait, during my husband's long
absences; and besides, I think that the women of India are a patient
race. I trust that John will yet come home to me, but if not, when it
is time, we will try to rescue him."
Ben said nothing, at the time, to damp her courage; but he shook his
head, as he left the cottage.
"Poor creature," he said. "I would not say anything to discourage her,
but for a woman and boy to try to get a captive out of the claws of
the Tiger of Mysore is just madness."
Each time he returned from a voyage, Ben called upon Mrs. Holland. He
himself had given up every vestige of hope, when it was known that the
name of her husband was not among the list of those whom Tippoo had
been forced to release. Margaret Holland, however, still clung to
hope. Her face was paler, and there was a set, pathetic expression in
it; so, when she spoke of her husband as being still alive, Ben would
sooner have cut out his tongue than allow the slightest word,
indicative of his own feeling of certainty as to the captain's fate,
to escape him; and he always made a pretence of entering warmly into
her plans.
The training, as she considered it, of her son went on steadily. She
always conversed with him in her father's language, and he was able to
speak it as well as English. She was ever impressing upon him that he
must be strong and active. When he was twelve, she engaged an old
soldier, who had set up a sort of academy, to instruct him in the use
of the sword; and in such exercises as were calculated to strengthen
his muscles, and to give him strength and agility.
Unlike most mothers, she had no word of reproach when he returned home
from school with a puffed face, or cut lips; the signs of battle.
"I do not want you to be quarrelsome," she often said to him, "but I
have heard your father say that a man who can use his fists well is
sure to be cool and quick, in any emergency. You know what is before
you, and these qualities are of far more importance, in your case,
than any book learning. Therefore, Dick, I say, never quarrel on your
own account, but whenever you see a boy bullying a smaller one, take
the opportunity of giving him a lesson while learning one yourself. In
the days of old, you know, the first duty of a true knight was to
succour the oppressed, and I want you to be a true knight. You will
get thrashed sometimes, no doubt, but don't mind that. Perhaps, next
time, you will turn the tables."
Dick acted upon this advice and, by the time he was fifteen, had
established a reputation among, not only the boys of his own school,
but of the district. In addition to his strength and quickness, he had
a fund of dogged endurance, and imperturbable good temper, that did
not fail him; even on the rare occasions when, in combats with boys
much older than himself, he was forced to admit himself defeated.
The fact that he fought, not because he was angry, but as if it were a
matter of business, gave him a great advantage; and his readiness to
take up the cause of any boy ill-treated by another was so notorious,
that "I will tell Dick Holland" became a threat that saved many a boy
from being burned.
Ten days before his conversation with Ben, his mother had said:
"Dick, I can stand this no longer. I have tried to be patient, for six
years, but I can be patient no longer. I feel that another year of
suspense would kill me. Therefore, I have made up my mind to sail at
once. The voyage will take us five months, and perhaps you may have to
remain some little time, at my brother's, before you can start.
"Now that the time is come, I think that perhaps I am about to do
wrong, and that it may cost you your life. But I cannot help it, Dick.
I dream of your father almost every night, and I wake up thinking that
I hear him calling upon me to help him. I feel that I should go mad,
if this were to last much longer."
"I am ready, Mother," the boy said, earnestly. "I have been hoping,
for some time, that you would say you would start soon; and though I
have not, of course, the strength of a man, I think that will be more
than made up by the advantage I should have, as a boy, in looking for
my father; and at any rate, from what you tell me, I should think that
I am quite as strong as an average native of your country.
"Anyhow, Mother, I am sure that it will be best for us to go now. It
must have been awful for you, waiting all this time; and though you
have never said anything about it, I have noticed for a long time that
you were looking ill, and was sure that you were worrying terribly.
What would be the use of staying any longer? I should not be very much
stronger in another year than I am now, and a year would seem an age,
to Father."
And so it was settled, and Mrs. Holland at once began to make
preparations for their departure. She had already, without saying
anything to Dick, given notice that she should give up the house. She
had, during the six years, saved a sum of money amply sufficient for
the expenses of the journey and outfit, and she had now only to order
clothes for herself and Dick, and to part with her furniture.
Ben, on his return, had heard with grave apprehension that she was
about to carry out her intention; but, as he saw that any remonstrance
on his part would be worse than useless, he abstained from offering
any, and warmly entered into her plans. After an hour's talk, he had
proposed to Dick to go out for a stroll with him.
"I am glad to have a talk with you, Ben," Dick said. "Of course, I
have heard, from Mother, what you told her when you came home; but I
shall be glad to hear it from you, so as to know exactly how it all
was. You know she feels sure that Father is still alive. I should like
to know what your opinion really is about it. Of course, it will make
no difference, as I should never say anything to her; but I should
like to know whether you think there is any possibility of his being
alive."
To this Ben had replied as already related. He was silent when Dick
asserted that, desperate or not, he intended to carry out his mother's
plan.
"I would not say as I think it altogether desperate, as far as you are
concerned," he said thoughtfully. "It don't seem to me as there is
much chance of your ever getting news of your father, lad; and as to
getting him out of prison, if you do come to hear of him; why, honest,
I would not give a quid of 'baccy for your chance; but I don't say as
I think that it is an altogether desperate job, as far as you are
concerned, yourself. Talking their lingo as you do, it's just possible
as you might be able to travel about, in disguise, without anyone
finding you out; especially as the Rajah, your uncle, ought to be able
to help you a bit, and put you in the way of things, and perhaps send
some trusty chap along with you. There is no doubt you are strong for
your age, and being thin, and nothing but muscle, you would pass
better as a native than if you had been thick and chunky. My old woman
tells me as you have a regular name as a fighter, and that you have
given a lesson to many a bully in the neighbourhood. Altogether, there
is a lot in your favour, and I don't see why you should not pull
through all right; at any rate, even should the worst come to the
worst, and you do get news, somehow, that your poor father has gone
down, I am sure it will be better for your mother than going on as she
has done for the last six years, just wearing herself out with
anxiety."
"I am sure it will, Ben. I can tell you that it is as much as I can
do, sometimes, not to burst out crying when I see her sitting, by the
hour, with her eyes open, but not seeing anything, or moving as much
as a finger--just thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
"I wish we were going out in your ship, Ben."
"I wish you was, lad; but it will be five or six weeks before we are
off again. Anyhow, the ship you are going in--the Madras--is a fine
craft, and the captain bears as high a character as anyone in the
Company's fleet.
"Well, lad, I hope that it will all turn out well. If I could have
talked the lingo like a native, I would have been glad to have gone
with you, and taken my chances. The captain saved my life in that
wreck, and it would only have been right that I should risk mine for
him, if there was but a shadow of chance of its being of use. But I
know that, in a job of this sort, I could be of no good whatsomever,
and should be getting you into trouble before we had gone a mile
together."
"I am sure that you would help, if you could, Ben; but, of course, you
could be of no use."
"And when do you think of being home again, lad?"
"There is no saying, Ben--it may be years. But, however long it takes,
I sha'n't give it up until I find out, for certain, what has become of
my father."
"And ain't there a chance of hearing how you are getting on, Dick? I
shall think of you and your mother, often and often, when I am on deck
keeping my watch at night; and it will seem hard that I mayn't be able
to hear, for years, as to what you are doing."
"The only thing that I can do, Ben, will be to write if I get a chance
of sending a messenger, or for my mother to write to you, to the
office."
"That is it. You send a letter to Ben Birket, boatswain of the
Madeira, care of East India Company, Leadenhall Street; and I shall
get it, sooner or later. Of course, I shall not expect a long yarn,
but just two or three words to tell me how you are getting on, and
whether you have got any news of your father. And if you come back to
England, leave your address at the Company's office for me; for it
ain't an easy matter to find anyone out, in London, unless you have
got their bearings right."
Ten days later, Mrs. Holland and Dick embarked on the Madras. Dick had
been warned, by his mother, to say nothing to anyone on board as to
the object of their voyage.
"I shall mention," she said, "that I am going out to make some
inquiries respecting the truth of a report that has reached me, that
some of those on board the Hooghley, of which my husband was captain,
survived the wreck, and were taken up the country. That will be quite
sufficient. Say nothing about my having been born in India, or that my
father was a native rajah. Some of these officials--and still more,
their wives--are very prejudiced, and consider themselves to be quite
different beings to the natives of the country. I found it so on my
voyage to England.
"At any rate, we don't want our affairs talked about. It will be quite
sufficient for people to know that we are, as I said, going out to
make some inquiries about the truth of this rumour."
"All right, Mother. At any rate, the captain has told you that he will
look after you, and make things comfortable for you, so we need not
care about anything else."
"We certainly need not care, Dick; but it is much more agreeable to
get on nicely with everyone. I was very pleased when Captain Barstow
called yesterday and said that, having heard at the office that the
Mrs. Holland on the passenger list was the widow of his old shipmate,
John Holland, he had come round to see if there was anything that he
could do for her, and he promised to do all in his power to make us
comfortable. Of course, I told him that I did not regard myself as
Captain Holland's widow--that all we knew was that he had got safely
ashore, and had been taken up to Mysore; and, as I had a strong
conviction he was still alive, I was going out to endeavour to
ascertain, from native sources, whether he was still living.
"'Well, ma'am, I hope that you will succeed,' he said. 'All this is
new to me. I thought he was drowned, when the Hooghley went ashore.
Anyhow, Mrs. Holland, I honour you for making this journey, just on
the off chance of hearing something of your husband, and you may be
sure I will do all I can to make the voyage a pleasant one for you.'
"So you see, we shall start favourably, Dick; for the captain can do a
great deal towards adding to the comfort of a passenger. When it is
known, by the purser and steward, that a lady is under the special
care of the captain, it ensures her a larger share of civility, and
special attentions, than she might otherwise obtain."
As soon as they went on board, indeed, the captain came up to them.
"Good morning, Mrs. Holland," he said. "You have done quite right to
come on board early. It gives you a chance of being attended to,
before the stewards are being called for by twenty people at once."
He beckoned to a midshipman.
"Mr. Hart, please tell the purser I wish to speak to him.
"So this is your son, Mrs. Holland? A fine, straight-looking young
fellow. Are you going to put him in the Service? You have a strong
claim, you know, which I am sure the Board would acknowledge."
"Do you know, Captain, it is a matter that I have hardly thought
of--in fact, I have, for years, been so determined to go out and try
and obtain some news of my husband, as soon as Dick was old enough to
journey about as my protector, that I have not thought, as I ought to
have done, what profession he should follow. However, he is only
fifteen yet, and there will be time enough when he gets back."
"If he is to go into the service, the sooner the better, ma'am--one
can hardly begin too young. However, I don't say there are not plenty
of good sailors, afloat, who did not enter until a couple of years
older than he is--there is no strict rule as to age.
"Only fifteen, is he? I should have taken him for at least a year
older. However, if you like, Mrs. Holland, I will put him in the way
of learning a good deal, during the voyage. He might as well be doing
that as loafing about the deck all day."
"Much better, Captain. I am very much obliged to you, and I am sure
that he will be, too."
"I should like it immensely, Captain," Dick exclaimed.
At this moment, the purser came up.
"Mr. Stevenson," the captain said, "this is Mrs. Holland. She is the
wife of my old friend, John Holland--we were midshipmen together on
board the Ganges. He commanded the Hooghley, which was lost, you know,
five or six years ago, somewhere near Calicut. There were two or three
survivors, and he was one of them, and it seems that he was taken up
the country; so Mrs. Holland is going out to endeavour to ascertain
whether he may not be still alive, though perhaps detained by one of
those native princes.
"Please do everything you can to make her comfortable, and tell the
head steward that it is my particular wish she shall be well attended
to. Who is she berthed with?"
The purser took the passenger list from his pocket.
"She is with Mrs. Colonel Williamson, and the wife of Commissioner
Larkins."
The captain gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. The purser went on.
"There is a small cabin vacant, Captain. Two ladies who were to have
it--a mother and daughter--have, I hear this morning, been
unexpectedly detained, owing to the sudden illness of one of them.
Their heavy baggage is all in the hold, and must go on, and they will
follow in the next ship. Shall I put Mrs. Holland in there?"
"Certainly. This is most fortunate.
"I don't think that you would have been comfortable, with the other
two, Mrs. Holland. I don't know the colonel's wife, but Mrs. Larkins
has travelled with us before, and I had quite enough of her on that
voyage."
"Thank you very much, Captain. It will indeed be a comfort to have a
cabin to myself."
Dick found that he was berthed with two young cadets, whose names, he
learned from the cards fastened over the bunks, were Latham and
Fellows.
Half an hour after the arrival of the Hollands on board, the
passengers began to pour in rapidly, and the deck of the Madras was
soon crowded with them, their friends, and their luggage. Below, all
was bustle and confusion. Men shouted angrily to stewards; women,
laden with parcels, blocked the gangway, and appealed helplessly to
every one for information and aid; sailors carried down trunks and
portmanteaus; and Mrs. Holland, when she emerged from her cabin,
having stowed away her belongings and made things tidy, congratulated
herself on having been the first on board, and so had not only avoided
all this confusion, but obtained a separate cabin, which she might not
otherwise have been able to do, as the captain would have been too
busy to devote any special attention to her.
After having handed her over to the care of the purser, Captain
Barstow had spoken to the second officer, who happened to be passing.
"Mr. Rawlinson," he said, "this is the son of my old friend, Captain
Holland. He is going out with his mother. I wish you would keep your
eye upon him, and let him join the midshipmen in their studies with
you, in the morning. Possibly he may enter the Service, and it will be
a great advantage to him to have got up navigation, a bit, before he
does so. At any rate, it will occupy his mind and keep him out of
mischief. A lad of his age would be like a fish out of water, among
the passengers on the quarterdeck."
"Ay, ay, sir. I will do what I can for him."
And he hurried away.
Dick saw that, for the present, there was nothing to be done but to
look on, and it was not until the next morning, when the Madras was
making her way south, outside the Goodwins, that the second officer
spoke to him.
"Ah, there you are, lad! I have been too busy to think of you, and it
will be another day or two before we settle down to regular work.
However, I will introduce you to one or two of the midshipmen, and
they will make you free of the ship."
Dick was, indeed, already beginning to feel at home. The long table,
full from end to end, had presented such a contrast to his quiet
dinner with his mother, that, as he sat down beside her and looked
round, he thought he should never get to speak to anyone throughout
the voyage. However, he had scarcely settled himself when a gentleman
in a naval uniform, next to him, made the remark:
"Well, youngster, what do you think of all this? I suppose it is all
new to you?"
"It is, sir. It seems very strange, at first, but I suppose I shall
get accustomed to it."
"Oh, yes. You will find it pleasant enough, by and bye. I am the
ship's doctor. The purser has been telling me about you and your
mother.
"I made one voyage with your father. It was my first, and a kinder
captain I never sailed with. I heard, from the purser, that there
seems to be a chance of his being still alive, and that your mother is
going out to try and find out something about him. I hope, most
sincerely, that she may succeed in doing so; but he has been missing a
long time now. Still, that is no reason why she should not find him.
There have been instances where men have been kept for years by some
of these rascally natives--why, goodness only knows, except, I
suppose, because they fear and hate us; and think that, some time or
other, an English prisoner may be useful to them.
"Your mother looks far from strong," he went on, as he glanced across
Dick to Mrs. Holland, who was talking to a lady on the other side of
her. "Has she been ill?"
"No, sir. I have never known her ill, yet. She has been worrying
herself a great deal. She has waited so long, because she did not like
to go out until she could take me with her. She has no friends in
England with whom she could leave me. She looks a good deal better,
now, than she did a month ago. I think, directly she settled to come
out, and had something to do, she became better."
"That is quite natural," the doctor said. "There is nothing so trying
as inactivity. I have no doubt that the sea air will quite set her up
again. It performs almost miracles on the homeward-bound passengers.
They come on board looking pale, and listless, and washed out; at the
end of a month at sea, they are different creatures altogether."
The purser had taken pains to seat Mrs. Holland, at table, next to a
person who would be a pleasant companion for her; and the lady she was
now talking to was the wife of a chaplain in the army. She had, a year
before, returned from India in the Madras, and he knew her to be a
kind and pleasant woman.
Dick did not care for his cabin mates. They were young fellows of
about eighteen years of age. One was a nephew of a Director of the
Company, the other the son of a high Indian official. They paid but
little attention to him, generally ignoring him altogether, and
conversing about things and people in India, in the tone of men to
whom such matters were quite familiar.
In three or four days, Dick became on good terms with the six
midshipmen the Madras carried. Two of them were younger than himself,
two somewhat older, while the others were nearly out of their time,
and hoped that this would be their last trip in the midshipmen's
berth. The four younger lads studied, two hours every morning, under
the second officer's instruction; and Dick took his place at the table
regularly with them.
Mathematics had been the only subject in which he had at all
distinguished himself at school, and he found himself able to give
satisfaction to Mr. Rawlinson, in his studies of navigation. After
this work was over, they had an hour's practical instruction by the
boatswain's mate, in knotting and splicing ropes, and in other similar
matters.
In a fortnight, he had learned the names and uses of what had, at
first, seemed to him the innumerable ropes; and long before that, had
accompanied one of the midshipmen aloft. On the first occasion that he
did so, two of the topmen followed him, with the intention of carrying
out the usual custom of lashing him to the ratlines, until he paid his
footing. Seeing them coming up, the midshipman laughed, and told Dick
what was in store for him.
The boy had been as awkward as most beginners in climbing the shrouds,
the looseness and give of the ratlines puzzling him; but he had, for
years, practised climbing ropes in the gymnasium at Shadwell, and was
confident in his power to do anything in that way. The consequence was
that, as soon as the sailors gained the top, where he and the
midshipman were standing, Dick seized one of the halliards and, with a
merry laugh, came down hand over hand. A minute later, he stood on the
deck.
"Well done, youngster," said the boatswain's mate, who happened to be
standing by, as Dick's feet touched the deck. "This may be the first
time you have been on board a ship, but it is easy to see that it
isn't the first, by a long way, that you have been on a rope. Could
you go up again?"
"Yes, I should think so," Dick said. "I have never climbed so high as
that, because I have never had the chance; but it ought to be easy
enough."
The man laughed.
"There are not many sailors who can do it," he said. "Well, let us see
how high you will get."
As Dick was accustomed to go up a rope thirty feet high, hand over
hand, without using his legs, he was confident that, with their
assistance, he could get up to the main top, lofty as it was, and he
at once threw off his jacket and started. He found the task harder
than he had anticipated, but he did it without a pause. He was glad,
however, when the two sailors above grasped him by the arms, and
placed him beside them on the main top.
"Well, sir," one said, admiringly, "we thought you was a Johnny
Newcome, by the way you went up the ratlines, but you came up that
rope like a monkey.
"Well, sir, you are free up here, and if you weren't it would not make
much odds to you, for it would take half the ship's company to capture
you."
"I don't want to get off paying my footing," Dick said, pulling five
shillings from his pocket and handing them to the sailors; for his
mother had told him that it was the custom, on first going aloft, to
make a present to them, and had given him the money for the purpose.
"I can climb, but I don't know anything about ropes, and I shall be
very much obliged if you will teach me all you can."