You will observe, children, that Tom was dreadfully learned and
nautical.
He was looking far more respectable and beautiful than when I saw him
last. He had a new coat of jetty black, and there wasn't a single burnt
hole in it. He was rounder in the face, too, and more brilliant in eye.
When I remarked upon these improvements.
"Oh," he said, "it is like this, Shireen, I have been living in the
bosom of the Captain's own family on shore, and on the fat of the land,
as you might say.
"I've turned over a new leaf too," he added, looking pensively at the
blazing, caking coal, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the
ship. "When I came on board the old _Venom_ I wasn't what you might
have called strictly honest. I would have laid hands on a herring at
any time; and I once tried to eat the cook's canary, and was beautifully
basted in consequence. But I've seen the error of my ways, and now that
I am the Captain's cat, I consider it is more honourable to beg than to
steal. But my eyes, Shireen, how beautiful you're looking! And to
think I've got you back again. Won't we have some jolly larks, and
won't we catch some flying fish. A few, eh? But mind you, Shireen, no
going to sleep on the bulwarks and tumbling into the sea, this cruise."
"Oh, it makes me shudder to think of that wild adventure, Tom," I said.
"Yes, those sharks pretty nearly had us, hadn't they, Shireen? If they
hadn't set to quarrelling among themselves as to which would have the
white cat and which the black, they'd have eaten us both."
"Heigho!" I sighed, and looked at Tom.
"Heigho!" sighed Tom, and looked at me.
Then we went on with the duet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The weather soon grew so warm and balmy, and beautiful, that there was
no longer any need for a fire in the stove, and the captain's steward
took away the skin, and put down a clean straw mat, and covered the sofa
with coolest white and blue chintz, and the ports were carried open all
day long, so that we could feel the breeze, and see the dark rippling
ocean rushing past us, all bespangled with splashes of sunshine.
I was of course quite an old sailor, though I couldn't speak nautical
like Tom, and I enjoyed this cruise even more than the last.
So I ought to. Was not every day taking me nearer and nearer to my dear
little mistress Beebee? And the shorter the time, the more I seemed to
love her.
"Instead of going away from home," said dear master to me one day in the
cabin, "I seem to be going to my home, and going to happiness. Oh, I do
hope, Shireen, that something will turn up for our good. The fortunes
of war are so changeable, you know, Shireen, and we may see Beebee, may
be able even to save her from her fate; but alas! we may not."
We rounded the Cape in wild weather. The waves were mountains high,
children; thunder roared and shook the ship, and lightning flash,
quickly following flash, played around us, till all the ocean looked
like a vast sea of fire. I was almost as much afraid of the thunder as
I had been of the great guns on board the saucy _Venom_.
But soon we got out of this region of storms, and went north and away,
the weather getting warmer day after day.
We were soon in the delightful regions of the flying fish; but I took
great care not to fall asleep again on the bulwarks.
Everything looked the same in this great turquoisine sea; the bonitoes,
the flying fish, the dancing, cooing dolphins, and even those terrible
sly-eyed tigers of the sea--the sharks.
On and on and north and north we went. Sometimes we passed a green
island, that seemed to hang in the air, rather than float on the ocean;
and sometimes the surface of the water was patched here and there with
glass-green or pearl-grey, and I knew, or rather Tom told me, that we
were sailing over shoals, and at night extra look-outs had to be set,
lest we should strike the coral rocks, and the ship break up, when we
should all be drowned, and I should never see my mistress more.
It was what they call the cool season when we reached Bombay at last.
But such a bustling, busy scene, never did I see before in all my life!
It was baggage and stores here, there, and everywhere, and soldiers all
about, and boats skimming the water in every direction; and drums
beating, bugles blowing, and great Highland bagpipes screaming, till I
declare to you, children, it made me quite dizzy. The worst of it was,
that for some days now I didn't see so much of my master, though you may
be sure I took good care to be at his side whenever I could.
I was sorry when the time came to part with Tom again, but we plighted
our troth, and promised never to forget the happy cruise in the _Hydra_.
When it was all over and we were once more at sea, _en route_ for the
Persian Gulf, I gave a great sigh of relief. But I did feel a little
lonely without Tom Brandy, and kept all the more closely to my master in
consequence.
I was now to become a soldier's cat in downright earnest, and know
something about the horrors of war. Shireen paused for a moment.
"Cracker," she said, "do you like the story?"
"It's a beauty," said Cracker, "and I'll like it still better when the
fighting commences and the fur begins to fly."