"And now there's one more thing," said the captain. "Six-foot Rule; I
suppose I'm to take him back?"
"If you mean me," drawled Jack Penny, entering the hut with Gyp, "no,
you mustn't take him back, for I ain't going. If Joe Carstairs don't
want me, I don't want him. The country's as free for one as t'other,
and I'm going to have a look round along with Gyp."
"But really, my dear fellow," said the doctor, "I think you had better
give up this idea."
"Didn't know you could tell what's best here," said Jack stoutly.
"'Tain't a physicky thing."
"But it will be dangerous, Jack. You see we have run great risks
already," I said, for now the time for the captain's departure had
arrived, and it seemed a suitable occasion for bringing Jack to his
senses.
"Well, who said it wouldn't be dangerous?" he said sulkily. "Gyp and me
ain't no more afraid than you are."
"Of course not," I said.
"'Tain't no more dangerous for me and a big dog than it is for you and
your black fellow. I don't want to come along with you, I tell you, if
you don't want me."
"My dear Jack," I said, "I should be glad of your company, only I'm
horrified at the idea of your running risks for your own sake. Suppose
anything should happen to you, what then?"
Jack straightened up his long loppetty body, and looked himself all over
in a curious depreciatory fashion, and then said in a half melancholy,
half laughing manner:
"Well, if something did happen, it wouldn't spoil me; and if I was
killed nobody wouldn't care. Anyhow I sha'n't go back with the
captain."
"Nonsense, my lad!" said the latter kindly. "I was a bit rough when I
found you'd stowed yourself on board, but that was only my way. You
come back along with me: you're welcome as welcome, and we sha'n't never
be bad friends again."
"Would you take Gyp too?" said Jack.
"What! the dog? Ay, that I would; wouldn't I, old fellow?" said the
captain; and Gyp got up slowly, gave his tail a couple of wags slowly
and deliberately, as his master might have moved, and ended by laying
his head upon the captain's knee.
"Thank'ye, captain," said Jack, nodding in a satisfied way, "and some
day I'll ask you to take me back, but I'm going to find Joe Carstairs'
father first; and if they won't have me along with them, I dessay I
shall go without 'em, and do it myself."
The end of it all was that we shook hands most heartily with the captain
next day; and that evening as the doctor, Jack Penny, Jimmy, Gyp, and I
stood on the beach, we could see the schooner rounding a point of the
great island, with the great red ball of fire--the sun--turning her
sails into gold, till the darkness came down suddenly, as it does in
these parts; and then, though there was the loud buzzing of hundreds of
voices about the huts, we English folk seemed to feel that we were alone
as it were, and cut off from all the world, while for the first time, as
I lay down to sleep that night listening to the low boom of the water,
the immensity, so to speak, of my venture seemed to strike me, giving me
a chill of dread. This had not passed off when I woke up at daybreak
next morning, to find it raining heavily, and everything looking as
doleful and depressing as a strange place will look at such a time as
this.