CHAPTER III.
The gunboat was a large one, and carried two midshipmen besidesParkhurst and Balderson, who were, however, their seniors. The messconsisted of the four lads, a master's mate, the doctor's assistant, andthe paymaster's clerk. In the gun room were the three lieutenants, thedoctor, the lieutenant of the marines, and the chief engineer. The crewconsisted of a hundred and fifty seamen and forty marines; the Serpenthaving a somewhat strong complement. She had been sent out speciallyfor service in the rivers, being of lighter draught than usual, withunusually airy and spacious decks, and so was well fitted for the work.The conversation in the junior mess of the Serpent was very lively thatevening. The vessel since her arrival on the station had made two runsbetween Singapore and Penang, but those on board had seen but littleof the country, and were delighted at the thought of a possibility ofactive service, and the talk was all of boat expeditions, attacks frompiratical prahus, of the merits of the bayonet and rifle opposed to krisand spear, and of sporting expeditions in which elephants, tigers, andother wild beasts were to fall victims of their prowess.
"You will find that you won't get much of that," the mate, who waspresident of the mess, said, after listening to their anticipationsof sport. "I have been on the west coast of Africa and know what it ispoking about in muddy creeks in boats, tramping through the jungle, kneedeep in mud, half the crew down with fever, and the rest worn out withwork and heat. I can tell you it is not all fun, as you youngsters seemto think, but downright hard work."
"Ah, well! any amount of work is better than standing here doingnothing," Dick said cheerfully, for the mate was known as a proverbialgrumbler. He had been unfortunate, and, as is usually the case, hismisfortunes were in some degree due to himself, for he was fond ofliquor, and although, when on board, he took no more than his share, hewas often somewhat unsteady in his speech when he returned from a runashore; and although the matter was not grave enough for his captains toreport altogether unfavorably of him, it was sufficiently so for themto shrink from recommending him for promotion, and in consequence he hadseen scores of younger men raised over his head. He had been for sometime unemployed before he had joined the Serpent, and had been appointedto her only because Captain Forest, who was a friend of his family, hadused his interest on his behalf. He had, however, when he joined, spokenfrankly to him.
"I have asked for you, Morrison," he said, "simply for the sake of yourfather; but I tell you frankly, that unless my report is a thoroughlyfavorable one, you are not likely to be again employed. I was told thatthere was nothing special against you, but that in no case since youpassed have you been warmly spoken of. It has been said that you knowyour duty well; but they had privately learned that you were fond ofliquor; and although no charge of absolute drunkenness had been broughtagainst you, it was considered that you would not make a desirableofficer in a higher rank. Now your future depends upon yourself; if youhave the resolution to give up the habit, you may yet retrieve yourself.If I find that you do so, I shall certainly take the opportunity ofgiving you a chance to distinguish yourself, and shall strongly urgeyour claim to promotion. If I am not able to do this, you must make upyour mind to be permanently put upon the shelf."
The admonition had not been in vain, and since joining the SerpentMorrison had made a successful effort to break himself of the habit. Hehad very seldom gone ashore, and when he did so, never went alone, andalways returned at an early hour, and without having taken more than hewould have done in the ordinary way on board. He had not, however, givenup his habit of grumbling, and his messmates were so accustomed to histaking a somber view of everything that his prognostication as to thenature of their work up the river had but little effect upon them.
"What do you think, Sandy?" Harry Parkhurst asked the Scotch assistantsurgeon.
"I know nothing about it, except what I have read. They say that thecountry is healthy; but it stands to reason that this cannot be sowhile you have got rivers with swamps and jungles and such heat as this.However, we have a good supply of quinine on board, and with that andour allowance of spirits, I hope that we shan't, as Morrison says, havehalf the ship's company down with the fever. It is all in our favor thatwe have only just come out, for they say that newcomers can resistthe effects of these tropical rivers much better than those whoseconstitution has been weakened by a residence in the country. As to thesport, I have no desire to kill any animal that does not meddle with me.My business is all the other way, and if any of you get mauled, I willdo my best to help the doctor to pull you through; but I am very wellon board the ship, and have no desire to go tramping about among theswamps, whether it be to hunt animals or fight Malays."
"You think that everyone should stick to his last, Sandy," Dick saidwith a laugh. "Well, I only wish there were more on board of youropinion, for that would give more chances to us who like to stretch ourlegs ashore for a change."
"I can stretch my legs here if I want to," the Scotchman said quietly,"and am not anxious to do more. I suppose, if there are expeditionsagainst the Malays, I shall have to go with them; but the fewer of themthere are the better I shall be pleased."
The talk was more serious aft, where the doctor and first lieutenantwere dining with the captain. It ended by the latter saying, "Well,Doctor, if what your friend Hassan said be true, we are likely enough tohave our hands pretty full, and shall have to watch this fellow Sehi assharply as we do his neighbors. He is not under our protection yet, andif he sends his prahus down the river to plunder on the coast, as Hassansays, he is not the sort of character likely to do us credit, andthe position of a British Resident with him would be the reverse of apleasant one. However, we must hope that he is not as black as he ispainted. He has evidently put the other chiefs' backs up, and we mustreceive their reports of him with some doubt. However, I have no doubtthat, if he turns out badly, we shall be able to give him a lesson thatwill be of benefit to him."
The first day's voyage up the river by no means came up to theanticipations of the midshipmen as to the country through which theywere to pass. The width of the river varied from a quarter of a mile tothree hundred yards; the banks on each side were lined with mangroves,presenting a dreary and monotonous aspect. Progress was slow, the steamlaunch going ahead and sounding the depth of water, the captain havingbut little faith in the assertion of the native pilot that he wasperfectly acquainted with every bank and shallow. Being now the dryseason, the tops of many of these shoals were dry, and numbers ofalligators were lying half in and half out of the water, basking in thesun.
Several of the officers who possessed rifles amused themselves byshooting at these creatures, but it was very rarely that any attentionwas paid to their firing, the balls glancing off the scaly armor withoutthe alligators appearing to be conscious of anything unusual. There wasmore amusement in watching how, when the swell of the steamer rushedthrough the shallow water and broke on the shoals, the reptiles turnedand scrambled back into the river, evidently alarmed at this, to them,strange phenomenon.
"I should not care about bathing here, Davis," Harry Parkhurst remarkedto the old sailor.
"You are right, sir; I would rather have a stand up fight with theMalays than trust myself for two minutes in this muddy water. Why, theyare worse than sharks, sir; a shark does hoist his fin as a signal thathe is cruising about, but these chaps come sneaking along underneath thewater, and the first you know about them is that they have got you bythe leg."
"Which is the worse, Davis, a bite from an alligator or a shark?"
"Well, as far as the bite goes, Mr. Parkhurst, the shark is the worst.He will take your leg off, or a big 'un will bite a man in two halves.The alligator don't go to work that way: he gets hold of your leg, andno doubt he mangles it a bit; but he don't bite right through the bone;he just takes hold of you and drags you down to the bottom of the river,and keeps you there until you are drowned; then he polishes you off athis leisure."
"The brutes!" Harry exclaimed, with deep emphasis. "See, the firstlieutenant has
hit that big fellow there in the eye or the soft skinbehind the leg; anyhow, he has got it hard; look how he is roaring andlashing his tail."
"What is the best way of killing them?" Dick asked.
"I have heard, sir, that in Africa the natives bait a big hook with alump of pork, or something of that sort; then, when an alligator hasswallowed it, they haul him up, holus bolus. I should say a good planto kill them would be with 'tricity. The last ship I was in, we had anofficer of the Marine Artillery who knew about such things, and he puta big cartridge into a lump of pork, with two wires, and as soon as theshark had swallowed it he would touch a spring or something, and therewould be an explosion. There was not as much fun in it as having a hook,but it was quicker, and he did not do it for sport, but because he hatedthe sharks. I heard say that he had had a young brother killed by oneof them. He would sit there on the taffrail for hours on the lookoutfor them, with three or four loaded lumps of pork. Why, I have known himkill as many as a dozen in a day. I expect the best part of his pay musthave gone in dynamite.
"He had a narrow escape one day; somehow the thing went wrong, and intrying to set it right he fell over the taffrail. The shark had boltedthe bait, but this was not enough for his appetite, and he went straightat the officer. He had had a young ensign sitting beside him, who hadoften watched his work, and knew how the thing went. I was standing nearat the time, and he began twisting some screws and things as cool as acucumber, though I could see as his hand shook a bit. Well, he got itright just in time, for the shark was not half a length away from thecaptain, and was turning himself over for a bite, when the thing wentoff, and there was an end of the shark. The captain was a bit shaken up,but he made a grab at the rope, and held on to it till we lowered a boatand picked him up. He had to be got up on deck in a chair, and it wastwo or three days before he was himself again. When he got round he setto work again more earnestly than ever; and I believe that if we hadstopped in the West Indies long enough, there would not have been ashark left in those waters."
"It was a capital plan, Davis, and if we ever take possession of theserivers, we shall have to do something of that sort to get rid of thebrutes. Are the Malays afraid of them?"
"I don't know, Mr. Parkhurst, but I think they are. I had a chat with amate I met in the Myrtle, which went home the day after we relieved themhere. He had been up some of the rivers, and told me that every villagehad a bathing place palisaded off so that the alligators could not getat the bathers."
"Well, there is one thing--we shall have to be very careful when we areout in boats, for if we were to run upon a sunken log and knock ahole in the boat's bottom, there would not be much chance of our everreaching the shore."
"You are about right there, sir. I aint afraid of Malays, but it givesme the creeps down my back when I think of one of them chaps gettinghold of me by the leg. Bob Pearson told me that the only chance you haveis to send your knife, or if you can't get at that, your thumbs, intothe creature's eyes. But it would require a mighty cool hand to find theeyes, with the brute's teeth in one's leg, and the water so thick withmud that you could not see an inch beyond your nose."
"Well, I will make a note of that, anyhow, Davis, and I will take a goodlook at the next alligator I see dead, so as to know exactly where tofeel for its eyes."
On the second day the scenery changed. In place of the mangroves a denseforest lined the river. Birds of lovely plumage occasionally flew acrossit, and after they had anchored in the evening, the air became full ofstrange noises; great beasts rose and snorted near the banks; sounds ofroaring and growling were heard in the wood; and the lads, who had beenso eager before to take part in a hunt on shore, listened with somethinglike awe to the various strange and often mysterious noises.
"What in the world does it all mean, Doctor?" Dick Balderson asked, asthe surgeon came up to the spot where the four midshipmen were leaningon the rail.
"It means that there is a good deal of life in the woods. That splashingsound you hear with deep grunts and snorts, is probably made by ahippopotamus wallowing in shallow water; but it may be a rhinoceros,or even a buffalo. That roar is either a tiger or a panther, and thatsnarling sound on the other bank is, no doubt, made by smaller animalsof the same family, indulging in a domestic quarrel. Some of the othersounds are made by night birds of some kind or other and perhaps bymonkeys, and I fancy that distant vibrating sound that goes on withoutintermission is a concert of a party of frogs."
"What is that?" as a shrill cry, as from a child, followed by a confusedoutburst of cries, chattering, and, as it seemed to them, a barkingsound, followed.
"I fancy that is the death cry of a monkey. Probably some python orother snake has seized it in its sleep; and the other noise is theoutcry of its companions heaping abuse upon the snake, but unable to doanything to rescue their friend."
"I don't think, Doctor," Harry Parkhurst said, in a tone that was halfin earnest, "that I feel so anxious as I did for sport in the forest;and certainly I should decline to take part in it after nightfall."
"I can quite understand that, lad. At night all the sounds of a tropicalforest seem mysterious and weird, but in the broad daylight the bushwill be comparatively still. The nocturnal animals will slink away totheir lairs, and there will seem nothing strange to you in the songs andcalls of the birds. I should recommend you all to take a sound dose ofquinine tonight; I have a two and a half gallon keg of the stuff mixed,and any officer or man can go and take a glass whenever he feels hewants it. It would be good for your nerves, as well as neutralize theeffect of the damp rising from the river. I should advise you whoare not on the watch to turn in early; it is of no use your exposingyourselves more than is necessary to the miasma."
The next day progress was more rapid, for the captain found that theassurance of the pilot that there was amply sufficient water for theSerpent had been verified, and he therefore steamed forward at halfspeed, without sending the launch on ahead to take soundings. Severalvillages were passed by the way, but though the inhabitants assembled onthe banks and watched the steamer, no boats were put out, nor were anyattempts made to barter their products with the strangers.
"It does not look as if we were popular, Mr. Ferguson," the captain saidto the first lieutenant. "It may be that they object to our presencealtogether, or it may be because they believe that we are going to theassistance of this Rajah Sehi. It certainly does not look well for thefuture."
"Not at all, sir. However, we shall be at the rajah's place tomorrowmorning, and shall then have a better opportunity of seeing how thingsare likely to go. At any rate, he is sure to be civil for a time, andwe shall be likely to procure fruit and vegetables, which, as thedoctor says, are absolute necessities if the men are to be kept in goodhealth."
The next morning they anchored about ten o'clock opposite the campongof the rajah. It was a good deal larger than any that they had passed onthe way up, but the houses were mere huts, with the exception of a largewooden structure, which they at once concluded was the residence of therajah. As soon as the Serpent turned the last bend of the river beforereaching the place, the sound of drums and gongs was heard, and a largeboat, manned by eighteen rowers, shot out from the bank as theanchor was dropped. The two officials on board at once mounted theaccommodation ladder, and on reaching the deck were received by thefirst lieutenant, behind whom stood a guard of honor of the marines.
Upon stating that they came to express, on behalf of the rajah, thepleasure he felt at their arrival, they were conducted to the captain'scabin. Compliments were exchanged through the medium of the interpreter,and a bottle of champagne was opened, and its contents appeared togratify the visitors. They announced that the rajah would receive thecaptain that afternoon at his palace.