more'n forty yearsago, Nie."
"Wait half a minute," I said, for I knew the old man was going to spinme a yarn that I was never tired of hearing--the story of my own earlyyears. Why was it that I liked to hear him tell the tale over and overagain, you may ask. For this reason--he never told it twice quite thesame: always the same in the main incidents, doubtless, but withsomething new each time.
"Wait half a minute."
"Ay, ay, lad!"
I brought out the little table and set it down under his favourite treeon the lawn, and placed thereon his favourite pipe and his pouch.
The old sailor smiled, and drew his great straw chair up and sat down,and I threw myself on the grass and prepared to listen.
The captain had his two elbows on the table; he was teasing the tobacco,and when he began to speak he was evidently following out some train ofthought, and addressing the tobacco, not me.
"As saucy a wee rascal he turned out as ever put a foot on board aship," said Captain Roberts.
"Whom are you talking about, old friend?" I asked.
"I'm talking about baby Nie," replied the captain, still addressing thetobacco. "I wonder, now, what would have become of him, though, if ithadn't been for old Bo'swain Roberts. Why, he would have died. Died?Ay, but I wouldn't see poor Sergeant Radnor's baby thrown to the sharks,not for all the world. Fed him first on hen's milk [the name given bysailors to egg beaten up in water]. Didn't do well on that. `Cap'n,'says I to the skipper one day, `soon's we go to Zanzibar we must get ananny-goat for the young papoose, else he'll lose the number of hismess, and the doctor will have to mark him D.D.' [discharged dead.]`Very well, Roberts,' says the skipper, `that's just as you like.'
"Now our purser was a mean old fellow. `Nanny-goat!' he cries, when Iwent to ask him for the money. `What next, I wonder? the service isgoing to the deuce. No, Her Majesty pays for no nanny-goats, I doassure ye.'
"I just touches my hat and marches off to our dear old doctor. I knewhe had a kindly heart. `Nanny-goat,' cries he, `why, of course thedarling baby'll have a nanny-goat. We'll keep it out of the sick-messfund, and mark it down medical comforts.' [Note 1.] `Excuse me, sir,'said I, catching hold of the doctor's hand--it was as rough as myown--`but you're a brick.'
"And that, `Nie,' is how you came for the first five years o' your lifeto be called nothing else but young `medical comforts.'"
"Five years!" I said, "that is a long spell for a ship to be on onestation."
"Ay, lad, you're right. But ships were ships in those days.
"Young `medical comforts'," he continued, "as they called you, in lessthan four years was a deal smarter than any monkey on board. Not thathe could climb quite so high, maybe, but he was more tricky, and that issaying a lot. And it was among the monkeys that `medical comforts'would mostly be, too.
"But the monkeys all seemed to like you, Nie; they would tease eachother, and fight each other, but they never touched you. There was oneanimal in particular, and he was your favourite, the queerest old chapyou ever saw. We got him down in Madagascar, and they called him theAy-ay. Doctor always said he was a being from another world, a kind ofa spirit, and the men used to be afraid of him. He had hands like ahuman being, but the middle finger was much longer than the others, andnot thicker than a straw. When only a baby, he used to dip this longskinny finger in milk and give you to suck, and when you went to sleephe never left your side. Sometimes he would stroke your face and say,`Ay-ay' as tenderly as if he'd been a mother to you. But the men alwaysdeclared it was `Nie, Nie,' he'd be saying.
"But you had one pet on board that maybe you mind on--the Albatross?"
"I do," said I, "young as I must have been at the time."
"People say," the captain went on, "they've never been tamed; but therehe was, sure enough, in an immense great hencoop, that the doctor hadmade for him, and there you'd be in front of him often enough, though hewould have cut the nose of anyone but yourself; and never a flying-fishwas caught you didn't get hold of, and take to him. The men got smallshare of these. But, bless you, Nie, you were the ship's chief pet, andthe men would have gone through fire and water for you any hour of theday or night.
"The jealousies there used to be about you, too, Nie! Why, lad, if ithad been a young lady it couldn't have been worse. Jealousies, Nie, ay,and more than jealousies, for our fellows didn't need much to make themstrip to the waist and fight. Fact is, when times were dull with us, Ithink they rather liked the excuse. I've heard a row got up for'ardjust in the following fashion:
"You would be playing on Davis's knee.
"`Give us half an hour o' the wee chap,' Bill would say.
"`Go along,' Davis would reply, `you 'ad him all day yesterday.'
"`He's smilin' to me,' Bill would say.
"`Smilin' _at_ you, you mean,' Davis would answer derisively.
"`Smilin' at your ugly face. Why, that mouth o' yours couldn't be madeany bigger 'athout shifting your ears back.'
"This would be enough.
"`Come below,' Bill would cry, `and I'll see if a big ugly lubber likeyou is to cheek me!'
"`Go with him, Davis!' half a dozen would cry. `_I'll_ hold theyoungster!'
"And there would be such a scramble to get you, that I used to wonderyou weren't torn to pieces. And all the while that animal with the longskinny middle finger would be jumping around like a demon and crying--
"`Ay-ay!--Ay-ay!--Ay-ay!'
"As he never cried like this without all the monkeys following suit, andall the parrots whistling and shrieking--on occasions like these, Nie,there was five minutes of a rough ship, I can tell you."
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Note 1. Medical comforts are luxuries for the sick, bought at thesurgeon's discretion out of the sick-mess fund.
CHAPTER FOUR.
"Still onward, fair the breeze nor rough the surge, The blue waves sport around the stern they urge; Far on the horizon's verge appears a speck, A spot--a mast--a sail--an armed deck."
Byron.
"Well, Ben," I said, "life must have been very pleasant to me then."
"And isn't it now, Nie? isn't it now, lad? Look at the beautiful oldplace that you have around you--all your own; you ought to be thankful.Listen to the birds on this delightful morning, their songs minglingwith the cry o' the wind through the poplars. And, lad, you cannot drawa breath out on the lawn here, without inhaling the odour of honey, andthe perfume of flowers."
"You are quite poetic, Ben Roberts," I replied.
"Quite enough to make the barnacliest old tar that ever lived feelpoetic, Nie," quoth Ben.
"Well, fill your pipe again, Ben."
"Ha! ha!" laughed the old man, "fill my pipe again, eh? That meansheave round with another yarn, eh?"
"Something very like it," I said.
"Well," said the captain, "an old man is to be forgiven if he does get alittle bit gossiping now and then, and wanders from his subject, and Ialways was fond of a bit o' pretty scenery, Nie--pretty bits like theold mill by the riverside down yonder."
"And a bit of fishing and shooting, Ben?"
"Ay, lad. But memory is at this moment taking me back to one of theloveliest bits o' woodland landscape in the world. What a poem ourRobbie Burns could have written there! You were still the _Niobe's_pet, but old enough now to be left at times without your sea-dad. Awaymiles and miles into the wooded interior of Africa, we were a good longdistance south the Line, and just sitting down, me and my mates, to asnack o' lunch on the banks of a roaring tumbling brook, where we'd beenbathing. We'd had a smartish week's shooting, and were thinking ofreturning to the ship the very next day.
"Our guns were lying carelessly enough at some little distance, whensuddenly a branch snapped, and before any of us could have stood up todefend ourselves, had it been an unfriendly Arab, or a savage Somali, adark skin pushed the branches aside and stood before us.
"It was our faithful Sweeba, the negro wh
o had brought us the news ofZareppa's intended attack on the night your poor father was killed, Nie.
"`Sweeba, what on earth brings you here?' says I.
"`Commander's orders,' said Sweeba, saluting.
"Now Sweeba was always dressed when on board like a British sailor, buthere he was almost as naked as the stem of a palm-tree.
"`What have you done with your clothes, Sweeba?' I asked.
"`I expect he has pawned them,' said little Brown, our purser's clerk.
"`I not can run muchee wid English clothes,' Sweeba said modestly.
"`And so you hid them in the bush, eh?'
"`Ah! Massa Roberts,' replied the negro, smiling; `you berry muchclebber.'
"`Well, and what are the commander's orders?'
"`You come back plenty much quick.'
"`Ship on fire?'
"`No, sah.'
"`Anything happened to Nie?'
"`No, sah. Nie and de monkey all right, sah.'
"`Well, explain.'
"`Only dis, sah, we goin' to fight Arab dhow.'
"We were all up quick enough at this intelligence. We didn't stop tofinish our luncheon.
"`Lead the way, Sweeba,' I cried.
"And off went Sweeba through the forest, we following in Indian file.We didn't take more of the game with us than we could easily carry, sothe jackals had a good feed that night.
"It was a long and a rough road to travel. You know the style of thing,Nie; the dark dismal woods, the broad swamps, the hills and the widestony uplands, where never a thing lives or thrives, bar the lizards anda few snakes, and then last of all the mangrove forests. Our anxiety toget back made us hurry all the more. We made forced marches, and burnedbut two camp fires ere we reached the coast.
"The ship we had left lying at anchor in a little wooded creek. Wereturned to find it gone.
"`Massa, massa; we too late,' cried Sweeba. `Now de Arab men come quickand kill us all for true.'
"`Where is the nearest village, Sweeba?'
"`Long way, sah; long way, and no good. Dey kill Englishman. No gibmooch time to tink.'
"`Well, we're in a fix, I think,' I said.
"`Not a bit of it,' cried a cheery voice close behind us; and lookinground there stood little Midshipman Leigh, of the starboard watch. Theyoung rascal had heard us coming, and hidden his boat among the trees,making his men lie close, as he expressed it, to see how we'd look.
"Our orders were to follow the _Niobe_ south, where she had gone topitch into a whole fleet of piratical slavers, and it was currentlyreported that our old friend Zareppa was admiral of the pirates, andthirsting for his revenge.
"What a lovely day it was, Nie; the sea as blue and tranquil as the eyeof a beautiful child."
"More poetry, old tar," I said.
"Wait a bit," said Captain Roberts. "Well, we cruised along down thecoast with just enough sea-breeze to bear us onwards and keep the oarsin-board.
"We expected to find our ship at a little island called Chaksee, whereshe would wait us; or, if absent when we went home, as our middy calledit, we could wait till she returned to this rendezvous.
"There wasn't a sail in sight when we started, nor a speck on theocean's breast, except a jumping skip-jack now and then, or a big sharkasleep on the surface, with a bird perched upon his protruding fin.
"The breeze held, and very pleasant it was, and most of us, I think,were asleep at the moment the outlook at the bows sang out--
"`Sail ho!'
"`Where away?' cried the midshipman.
"`Rounding the point yonder, sir.'
"The midshipman scrambled forward, and we were all alert enough now.She wasn't a dhow, and no one could make anything of her at first, butwe soon made her out to be one of those low freeboard one-masted craftthat the Portuguese had in those days as coasters, and which they oftenused as slavers or even pirates.
"`She seems very low in the water,' said the midshipman, `Is she too bigto fight, Mr Roberts?'
"`A deal too big,' I replied, `We'd better let her alone, I think.'
"We got to windward of her anyhow, so we could have a peep on board. Weloaded with ball cartridge, and stood by for whatever might happen.
"The strange craft stood right on her course, and never seemed to heedus, though the lowering glance her captain gave us showed he bore us nogood will. She was crowded with a rascally crew of Portuguese andnegroes, and many bore ghastly wounds, that showed she had been in arecent fray; and it afterwards turned out that she had had a brush withthe _Niobe_, but escaped.
"On her deck were four or five biggish guns. Discretion in this casewas evidently then the better part of valour, for she could easily haveblown us out of the water, but she seemed too disheartened for anythingelse but flight.
"I think we were pleased also to escape an encounter that wouldcertainly have ended in disaster.
"The wind fell about sunset, then oars were got out, and, laden as wewere, it was a stiffish pull. All in the dark too, until eight o'clock,when the moon rose, half hidden at first by a bank of greyish clouds,which she soon surmounted, and then shone out with a splendour that youonly see in one part of the world."
"And that," said I, interrupting him, "is the Indian Ocean."
"True, Nie, true," said Roberts.
"We were among islands now, some bare and level, others wooded, a fewwith lofty cocoa-palms.
"We had just landed on one of the latter, because owing to the cocoa-nuttrees there would be, as you know, Nie, a few natives, and we expected abit of hot supper. We had drawn our boat well up on the sandy beach ofa little cove, hidden by some scraggy bushes when--
"`Look, look!' cried our purser's clerk.
"All eyes were directed seaward.
"Two great dhows stealing out to sea! They were off in the samedirection that we were going, and from the cut of their sails we couldtell they were pirates, that is Arab fighting slavers.
"`I say, Mr Roberts,' said the middy, `I wouldn't tackle those, wouldyou?'
"`We'd never see England again if we did,' I replied.
"`Well,' said the boy, `I'm precious hungry, aren't you, Mr Roberts?'
"`I could do with a pick,' I replied.
"Then young Leigh gave his orders like a prince.
"`Bear a hand, lads,' he cried, `and get supper; gather sticks, light afire, on with the pot; some of you run to the village and bring half adozen fowls. Cut up the bacon. Did you bring the onions? Smith, ifyou've forgotten the onions, I'll have you flogged.'
"`Then I won't be flogged,' said Smith.
"Well, Nie, the remembrance of that stew, that cock-a-leekie soup, madegipsy-fashion in that lonely island of the ocean, makes me truly hungryto think of even now."
"Shall I get you a ham sandwich, Roberts?" I asked provokingly.
"A ham sandwich!" he cried, "What! sawdust and paint, and the memory ofthat stew hovering round one like the odours of Araby the Blest? Don'tinsult me, Nie. I tell you, boy, that a hungry man might have beencontent to dine off the steam. There!
"Well, we had a good long rest after supper."
"You needed it, I should think," I said, laughing.
"None o' your sauce," said the old captain. "We rested, and smoked ourpipes, and looked on the sea. Oh! to see the moonlight dancing on therippling waves!"
"I can easily imagine it, because I've often seen the like myself," Ireplied.
"It was late that night when we got to Chaksee. The ship was in behindthe rocks so snug that we thought at first she wasn't there.
"All on board were glad to see us, including Nie himself."
"How old would I be then, Roberts?"
"About five. The _Niobe_, it seems, was ordered down to the Cape torefit; all her crew were to return to England, but, as you know, Ipreferred to stop in the old ship with the new crew. I'm like the cats,I don't like to move.
"The captain and I had a long talk. He treated me just as if I'd been acommissioned officer. He told me he had fo
und a whole nest of pirates,that he had given one fits a day or two before, and meant to pepper theothers soon if he had a chance. They were over there, he said, pointingto the African coast, and he would have them.
"The commander of the _Niobe_, indeed, was in high glee. He had beenordered home, he said, but he would wait for those piratical scoundrelsand old Zareppa if it were a month. Then, surely, if he destroyed himand his ships his country would, in some way or other, requite his goodservices, and either promote him or give him a better command.
"We lay snug behind the rocks at Chaksee for two whole days. Ourtop-gallant masts were down, and no one in passing the island could havetold there was a vessel there at all.
"On a hill, not far off, two men were kept always on the outlook.
"On the morning of the third day the signalmen left their posts andhurried towards the ship.
"Three large piratical dhows, carrying the blood-red flag of the Arabnation, were bearing down towards the island. They