There was quite a discussion when the doctor joined those waiting by the
brig, the Count being bitterly annoyed and displaying more excitement
than the others had seen in him before, while Morny kept close to his
side, and whispered to him from time to time, as if trying to calm him
down.
"Yes, yes, my son," he cried passionately, and speaking to him in
French; "but you are a boy, and do not think. Look here," and he
pointed to the helpless brig, "how do we know but that he may be an
enemy? And we are in this helpless state, quite at his mercy."
The doctor was listening attentively, and understood every word.
"I know," he said soothingly, "this must be very painful for you; but
Captain Chubb believes that before many days are over the brig will be
as strong as ever. I answer for him that he is making every effort to
finish what he has undertaken."
Uncle Paul directed a glance at the skipper, who stood scowling close
by.
"Thank you, doctor," he granted, as he gave a nod. "And I feel sure
that this Spanish captain, who is evidently an ordinary trader, will
prove perfectly inoffensive; and besides, my dear sir, we are not at war
now, and what enemies can you have to fear?"
"Ah, yes," said the Count bitterly, as he made a deprecating gesture
with his hands, turning and directing his words at his son; "what
enemies can we have to fear?"
"Well, I am glad you look upon it in that light," said the doctor.
"Now, if it had been years ago, with your smart little craft, and you
had been followed up here by a small sloop of war, or an English letter
of marque, you might have expected to be made a prize. But this is an
ordinary Spanish schooner, and though I suspected it at first, I don't
think she is tainted by the slave trade, but engaged in traffic with the
natives for the sake of palm-oil."
"Perhaps you are right, sir," said the Count.
"I feel sure I am," said the doctor, "and I must confess to having
hailed this man's coming, from the help he will be to me in a little
expedition I propose to make when we have seen the brig restored and all
set right."
"I thank you," said the Count, "but I am so anxious for the success of
my own scientific search that I have got into the habit of seeing
enemies in every one, even as I did, doctor, in you and your men. And
you see this is an armed vessel with a very strong crew."
"Well," said the doctor good-humouredly, "we have armed vessels with
very strong crews. Anxiety has made you nervous, Count. Here's your
doctor," he said, turning to Captain Chubb, "and before many days have
passed he will have cured all your trouble, and we can get to sea
again."
"Ah, yes, that will be better," said the Count, wiping his moist brow.
"You must forgive me, doctor--and you too, Captain Chubb. I am
impatient, I know. But I see now all will be well. One moment, though:
you said we can get to sea again. _We_? You will sail with me?"
"My dear sir," said the doctor, "you need have no fear. Captain Chubb
will make your brig as sound as ever. You will need to look for no
further assistance from me."
"I did not mean that," said the Count hastily. "I meant brotherly
help--the help that one devoted to research could give to another."
"But," said the doctor, laughing, "you have never confided to me what
particular form of research yours is."
"No, I have not," said the Count hurriedly, "and I ask you to spare me
from explanation. Be satisfied if I say that we are both bound upon
great missions, and that you, a brother scientist, can give me enormous
help by working in company with me for the next few weeks at most. Is
this too much to ask of a learned doctor like you?"
"Oh no," said Uncle Paul good-humouredly; "I do not see that it is. You
are not going to ask me to help you to escape from an English prison."
The Count gave an involuntary start.
"Of course not," said the doctor, "for I am thankful that all that kind
of trouble is at an end, and that France and England are at peace; and
besides, you are free to come and go where you please. Well, as your
son and my nephew have become such inseparable friends, and my time is
my own, I will ask no questions, but sail where you sail, and pick up
what I can to complete my specimens while you continue your research;
and believe me, I wish you every success."
"Ah," said the Count, with a sigh of satisfaction; and with all a
Frenchman's effusiveness he laid his hands on the doctor's shoulders and
said, with some little show of emotion, "I thank you. You are making me
as great a friend as my son is to your nephew."
Watch was mounted on both vessels at night as if they were in the
presence of a dangerous enemy; but there in the great solitude of that
forest through which the river ran, there was nothing human to disturb
the night.
Savage nature was as busy as ever during the dark hours through which
the creatures of land and water fled for their lives or pursued their
prey. Otherwise everything was wondrously still, and those upon
schooner or brig who might have felt doubtful about the Spanish craft
saw or heard nothing save the low murmur of voices in conversation and
the occasional opening or shutting of a dull lantern, whose use was
explained by the sudden glow cast upon the face of some swarthy sailor
as he lit a fresh cigarette, after which a couple of faint points of
glowing light rising and falling might have been seen passing to and fro
upon the Spaniard's deck.
Then as daylight came again there was the busy sound of the saw,
chipping of the adze, the creak of auger, and the loud echoing rap of
the mallet, as some tree-nail was driven home.
On the previous evening the conversation that had gone on between the
doctor and the Count had hardly ended before the Spaniard's boat, rowed
by a couple of men, came as near as they could get to the brig, and one
of the bare-legged men, after giving a sharp look round into the shallow
water, as if in search of danger from one of the hideous reptiles on the
look-out for prey, stepped over into the mud, and came up, bearing a
basket of large, freshly-caught fish, which he placed in the hands of a
couple of the sailors, and then stood waiting.
"Ah!" cried the doctor. "The fish the Spanish captain promised me. Our
thanks to your master, and I will not forget what he wanted."
The man answered him in Spanish.
"Ah, now you are taking me out of my depth," said the doctor. "Do you
speak French?"
The man shook his head.
"English, then?"
"_No comprende, senor_," replied the man hurriedly--or what sounded like
it.
"Never mind, then," said the doctor. "I'll send your skipper some
powder to-morrow."
The man shook his head and made signs, repeating them persistently,
frowning and shaking his head.
"I think he means, uncle," cried Rodd, "that he won't go away until you
have paid him in powder for the fish."
"Hang the fellow!" cried the doctor petulantly. "Why hasn't he been
taught English? I don't carry canisters of gunpowder about in my
pockets. Can any one make him understand that the powder is in the
little magazine on the schooner?"
"What does he want? Some gunpowder?" said the Count.
"Yes. I promised him a present of a few pound canisters."
"We can get at ours," said the Count quietly, and giving an order to the
French sailor who acted as his mate, the latter mounted into the brig,
disappeared down the cabin hatchway, and returned in a few minutes with
half-a-dozen canisters, with which the man smilingly departed, after
distributing a few elaborate Spanish bows.
The weather was glorious, and all that next day good steady progress was
made with the brig repairs, while Rodd and his uncle spent most of the
time keeping guard over the workmen and sending crocodile after
crocodile floating with the tide, to the great delight of the grinning
crew of the Spaniard, who lined the new-comer's bulwarks as if they were
spectators of some exhibition, and clapped their hands and shouted loud
_vivas_ at every successful shot, while all the time tiny little curls
of smoke rose at intervals into the sunny air as the men kept on making
fresh cigarettes as each stump was thrown with a _ciss_ into the gliding
stream.
"Quiet and lazy enough set, Pickle," said the doctor. "How they can
bask and sleep in the sunshine! It's an easy-going life, that of
theirs. Ah, there's the skipper! Fierce-looking fellow. He looks like
a man who could use a knife. But you don't half read your Shakespeare,
my boy."
"What's Shakespeare got to do with that fierce-looking Spaniard using
his knife, uncle?"
"Only this, my boy," said the doctor, drawing the ramrod out of his
double gun and trying whether the wads were well down upon the bullets,
for a couple of the ugly prominences that arched over a big crocodile's
eyes came slowly gliding down the stream; "I mean that a
Shakespeare-reading boy clever at giving nicknames--and that you can do
when you like--would have called that fellow Bottom the Weaver."
"I don't see why, uncle. Bottom the Weaver?" said the boy musingly, as
he slowly raised his gun.
"No, no; stop there, Rodd! That's my shot. I saw the brute first."
"All right, uncle; only don't miss;" and the boy lowered his gun. "But
who was Bottom the Weaver?"
"Tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated the doctor. "I say, this is a big one,
Rodd--a monster."
"Here, I recollect, uncle. He was the man who was going to play lion."
"Good boy, Pickle; not so ignorant as I thought you were. Well, didn't
he say he'd roar him as gently as any sucking dove, so as not to
frighten the ladies?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Well, didn't our knife-armed Spaniard roar to us as gently as--"
_Bang_.
"Got him!" cried the doctor.
"No, no; a miss," cried Rodd.
_Bang_, again.
"That wasn't," said the doctor, and as the smoke drifted away there was
a burst of _vivas_ again from the Spaniards as they saw their dangerous
enemy writhing upon the surface with the contortions of an eel, as it
turned and twined, and then lashed the water up into foam, till in a
spasmodic effort it dived out of sight and was seen no more.
"Poor fellow!" said Joe Cross from the brig, in the most sympathetic of
tones. "Such a fine handsome one too, Mr Rodd, sir! Talk about a
smile, when he put his head out of the water, why, a tiger couldn't
touch it! It must have been three times as long."
So the work went on, and the tyrants of the river perished slowly, but
did not seem to shrink in numbers. But the carpentering party were able
to do their work in safety, and when, after the interval for dinner had
ended, Uncle Paul and his nephew carried on what Rodd called a reptilian
execution, the Spaniard's crew were lying about in the sunshine asleep
upon their deck. They were too idle to take any interest in the
shooting, while their captain, a rather marked object in the sunshine
from the bright scarlet scarf about his waist, worn to keep up his snowy
white duck trousers, lay upon the top of the big three-masted schooner's
deck-house with his face turned to the glowing sun, and with a cigarette
always in his mouth.
"I believe he goes on smoking when he's asleep, uncle," said Rodd.
"Yes, Pickle, and if I were an artist and wanted to paint a
representation of idleness, there's just the model I should select.
They are a lazy lot."
"Yes, uncle, and twice over to-day I saw them talking together, and I
feel sure that they were laughing at our men because they worked."
No communication whatever took place between the strangers and the first
occupants of the anchorage till after dark, when, as Rodd was leaning
over the taffrail talking to Joe Cross, who said he was cooling himself
down after a hot day's work, the Spaniard's boat was dimly seen putting
off from the big schooner, and was rowed across, to come close alongside
as Joe hailed her.
The Spanish skipper looked up, cigarette in mouth, and nodded to Rodd.
"You tell your ship-master," he said, "that I have been thinking about
the birds and the spotted leopards and the big monkeys. I know a place
where they swarm. Good-night!" And at a word his boat was thrust off
again and rowed back towards the gangway from which they came.
"Well, let 'em swarm," said Joe Cross, as if talking to himself. "I
don't mind. This 'ere's a savage country, and 'tis their nature to. He
seems a rum sort of a buffer, Mr Rodd, sir. What does he mean by that?
Was it Spanish chaff?"
"Oh no, Joe. My uncle was asking him about what curiosities there are
in the country. That's why he said he had been thinking about them."
"Oh, I see. But how rum things is, and how easy a man can make
mistakes! Now, if I had been asked my opinion I should have said that
that there was a chap as couldn't think even in Spanish; sort of a
fellow as could eat, sleep and smoke, and then begin again, day after
day and year after year. This is a rum sort of a world, Mr Rodd, sir,
and there's all sorts of people in it. Now look at that there skipper.
He fancies hisself, he does, pretty creature! White trousers, clean
shirt every morning, and a red scarf round his waist. 'Andsome he calls
hisself, I suppose. He don't know that even a respectable dog as went
to drink in a river and saw hisself, like that there other dog in the
fable, would go and drown hisself on the spot if he found he'd a great
set of brown teeth like his!"
"Ah, Joe, Spaniards are not like Englishmen."
"Oh, but I don't call him a Spaniard, sir. I've seen Spaniards--regular
grand Dons, officers and gentlemen, with nothing the matter with them at
all, only what they couldn't help, and that's being Spaniards instead of
Englishmen. These are sort of mongrels. Some of this 'ere crew are
what people call mollottoes. They are supposed to be painted white men,
but payed over with a dirty tar-brush. Talk about a easy-going lot!
Why, I aren't seen one of them do a stroke of work to-day. They are in
the ile trade, aren't they, sir? Palm-oil."
"Yes, Joe; I suppose so."
"Ah, that accounts for it, sir. Handling so much ile that it makes them
go so easy."
The sailor burst into a long soft laugh, "What are you laughing at,
Joe?"
"That warn't laughing, sir; that was smiling. When I laugh hearty you
can hear me a long way off."
"Well, what were you smiling at?"
"I was thinking, sir, about how it would be if our old man had that lot
under him. My word, how he'd wake them up! Poor, simple, sleepy
beggars! It would set them thinking that they hadn't took a skipper
aboard, but a human hurricane. I wonder who owns that there craft, and
whether he gets anything out of the oil trade. _Viva_, indeed! Yes,
our old man would give them something to _viva_ about. Their skipper
too--nice way of coming up a river to get a cargo. Well, I suppose they
get their tobacco pretty cheap; and that's how the world turns round."
Another day glided by, with steady visible progress in the brig's
repairs; and the Count seemed in better spirits, and said a few
complimentary words to the skipper.
On board the schooner Captain Chubb appeared to be setting an example to
the Spaniards, for those of his crew who were not helping the carpenters
at the brig were kept busy holystoning, polishing, and coiling down
ropes into accurate concentric rings, till the _Maid of Salcombe_ was as
smart as any yacht.
Meanwhile the Spaniards lined the bulwarks of their vessel, smoked and
yawned, and watched the reptile shooting, and then stared in sleepy
wonderment at the busy smartening up of the English schooner.
The evening came, and this time the Spanish captain had himself rowed
across again, to find that it was the doctor who was leaning over the
side with his nephew, and, cigarette in mouth still, the man said
slowly--
"He tell you about the birds and the monkeys up the little river?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "and I've been thinking about it."
"Ah, yes," said the Spaniard. "I am going to stop a fortnight yet
before it's time to go up with my cargo. I'll make my men row you up to
the mouth of that little river; and I could show you something you'd
like, but you would have to take your guns--you and him too. But maybe
the boy would be afraid."
"That I shouldn't!" cried Rodd hotly.
"Oh! Then you could come," said the Spaniard. "But you'd be in the way
if you were afraid. Think about it. Good-night."
The doctor was ready to enter into conversation, and question him; but
the boat went off back at once, leaving Uncle Paul mentally troubled,
for the idea of an excursion into the depths of the forest wilds was
exciting in the extreme.
"He needn't have been in such a hurry, Pickle," said the doctor. "I
should have liked to have questioned him a little."
"Yes, uncle. I should like to hear about such things; but it was like
his impudence to say that I should be afraid!"
"Yes, my boy; it was rude," replied the doctor thoughtfully, "Ah! It's
such a chance as might never occur again. A guide like that isn't
always to be picked up."
"No, uncle," replied the boy; "and it must be very wonderful in the
depths of the forest, where you can get through, because you would be
able to row."
"Yes, my boy; wonderfully interesting," said the doctor eagerly.
"But we couldn't go, uncle."
"Why, Pickle? Why?"
"Because we couldn't go away and leave the brig like that."
"No; of course not, my boy. It would be too bad, wouldn't it? And of
course we couldn't go and trust ourselves to a pack of strangers, eh?"
"We shouldn't be afraid, should we, uncle?"
"Well, no, my boy; no. But I don't think it would be prudent. But
there, there, we mustn't think of it. We can't do everything we like."