Chapter Nineteen.
The doctor made no opposition and showed no sign of resentment, for he was biding his time. The beachcomber asked questions and he answered them, about the lading of the vessel; but both Carey and Bostock noticed that he carefully avoided all reference to the bullion that was on board.
Later on in the morning the invader announced his intention of inspecting the stores, and made his prisoners march before him and show him all they could; it was hot and stifling between-decks, and he was soon tired and ordered all on deck, where he had a long look round, and at last caught sight of something on shore.
“Hullo, here!” he cried, turning his fists into a binocular glass without lenses; “who’s been meddling with my pearl-oyster grounds?”
The doctor, being referred to in this question, turned to the man and laughed bitterly.
“Your pearl-oyster grounds!” he said, in a tone full of the contempt he felt.
The man thrust his unpleasant-looking face close to the doctor’s.
“Yes,” he said, with an ugly smile; “mine. Didn’t I tell you before that all the reefs and islands here, and all that’s on them or comes ashore on them’s mine? Someone’s been meddling over yonder and collecting and stacking shells; someone’s been sinking tubs and rotting the oysters to get my pearls. It’s been done by your orders, eh?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, quietly; “I suppose I am to blame for it.”
“Ho! Well, I suppose you did it for me, so I won’t complain. Here, bring out the box.”
“What box?” said the doctor.
“What box?” roared the man, fiercely; “why, the box o’ pearls you’ve got put away. Now don’t you put me out, young fellow, because when I’m put out I’m ugly. Ask Black Jack what I can do when I’m ugly. He can understand and talk English enough to tell you.”
“I tell you this,” began the doctor, but he was stopped by a growl that might have emanated from some savage beast.
“You wait till I’ve done. Coo-ee!”
“Coo-ee!” came in answer, and Black Jack rushed forward in a series of bounds, nulla-nulla in one hand, boomerang in the other.
“Here, Jack, what do I do when I’m ugly?”
“Mumkull—killa fellar,” said the black, grinning as if it were a fine joke. “Mumkull now?” he continued, with his eyes beginning to look wild, as he turned them questioningly on one after the other.
“Not yet. Get out.”
The black darted away again as quickly as he had come.
“That chap’s a child o’ nature, young fellow,” said the beachcomber, scowling; “so I say to you, don’t you try to gammon me. Fetch out that box.”
“How can he,” cried Carey, boldly, “when he hasn’t got one?”
“What?” roared the man, clapping his hand upon his revolver, and turning fiercely upon the boy. “What’s that?”
“You heard what I said,” cried Carey, in no way daunted. “Why, we haven’t tried one of the tubs yet.”
“Good job for you,” growled the man, fiercely, as he tried to look Carey down; but the boy did not for a moment wince. “You’re a nice imprunt young cock bantam, though. But you’re shivering in your shoes all the same—aren’t you?”
He made a snatch at the boy’s shoulder, but quick as thought Carey struck at the coming hand, catching it heavily with his fist and eluding the touch.
“Don’t do that,” he cried, fiercely, “you know I’ve got a bad shoulder.”
“Why, you insolent young cock-sparrow, I’ve a good mind to—No, I won’t—I’ll let them do it by-and-by.”
He jerked his head sidewise in the direction of the blacks, who were eagerly watching and seeing everything, the sight of the boy striking at their white king sending a thrill of excitement through them; however, they did not advance, but stood watching and noting that the beachcomber was laughing heartily.
“I like pluck in a boy,” he growled. “Hi, coo-ee.”
Black Jack darted to his side, with eyes flashing and nostrils distended.
“Boat,” said the man, abruptly.
Black Jack shouted something incomprehensible, and three of the black fellows bounded to the side and disappeared into the whale-boat with their leader.
“Now then,” said the beachcomber, “you stop aboard, cookey, and get something ready for dinner. Hi, Black Jack. Fish. Tell ’em.”
“Tell boys kedgee fis’?”
The beachcomber nodded, and the black shouted again, with the result that six more of the blacks came running to the side and dropped over into the canoe.
“Hi, Jack, tell the others, if cookey here—”
“Dis cookey?” asked the black, touching Carey on the head.
“No, stupid. That one.”
“Iss. Dat cookey,” and he nodded and grinned at Bostock.
“Tell ’em if cookey tries to get away, mumkull.”
“Iss. Mumkull,” and the black darted forward, to return with the remaining ten, all grinning, to seat themselves in a row, spear in hand, upon the starboard bulwarks, staring hard at Bostock, who tried to appear perfectly calm and composed; but his face twitched a little.
“They’d better not try to mumkull me,” he whispered to Carey. “Two can play at that game. But what’s he going to do?”
“Now then,” cried the beachcomber, “into the boat with you. I’m going to have those casks tapped and see what the stuff’s like. Hi! Jack, take some buckets in the boat.”
The black darted about and secured three buckets, which he tossed over the side into the boat.
“Now then, down with you,” growled the beachcomber, and Carey and the doctor had to go, leaving Bostock with his eyes far more wide open than usual.
“I wish the doctor would talk to me,” said Carey to himself as he took his seat in the well-formed whale-boat, which he rightly supposed must have come ashore somewhere on this ocean king’s dominions. “He is so horribly quiet.”
Then the boy looked at Black Jack and his three companions, who as soon as their ruler was in his place, gun in hand, thrust out their oars and began rowing with the skill and jerk of men-o’-war’s men.
A minute later he was watching the outrigger canoe being paddled along quickly, its occupants trailing mother-o’-pearl baits behind, and soon after he saw them hook and drag in a fish.
Then Carey turned to gaze at the shore they were approaching with a bitter feeling of resentment arising as he thought of all their labour in the hot sunshine, collecting and piling up the great pearl shells, and more bitterly still as he dwelt upon the tubs of liquid and liquefying oysters which would, he did not doubt, now have quite a thick deposit of pearls at their bottoms.
“Oh, it does seem so hard for that ruffian to get them!” he said to himself, and he sat there with his teeth set, gazing straight before him, till he caught Black Jack’s eyes twinkling laughingly at him as that individual shone like a well-polished pair of boots, and glistened in the sun, while he lustily pulled stroke.
As soon as he caught Carey’s eye he laughed loudly, and in the most perfectly good-humoured way, as if they were the very best of friends, and when the beachcomber was looking another way he raised one hand to go through the pantomime of licking treacle off his fingers and rubbing his front, to the delight of his toiling companions.
It did Carey good, and he smiled back, and nodded.
“I don’t believe they’d hurt me,” he said to himself. “They’re just like a lot of schoolboys, only so much uglier.”
The beachcomber made a movement, and the blacks’ faces were in a flash like so much carved ebony, and they rowed on, choosing as if from old habit the way into the canal-like passage among the rocks, and leaping out at the home-made wharf. Here they held the boat steady in a regular naval style, while their chief and his companions stepped out, the former using the black backs for support, for big and strong as he was his obese state made him far from active.
“That’s the way I taught ’em,” he said, with a grim smile at Carey, who nodded back, said nothing, but thought very deeply, his fancies taking the direction of wondering whether the wretched tyrant would ever go too far with his followers, and they would kill and eat him.
His thoughts took a fresh current directly, for the subject of them shouted the one word, “Buckets!” and after making the boat fast the crew came running with the buckets to where the beachcomber was now standing examining the first tub, which happened to be the last filled, and he growled, moved to the next, and then on and on to the last.
“Here you are, Jack; this first.”
The black fellow nodded, looked in the tub, and then as if quite at home at the work, picked up the great bamboo lying ready for the purpose and set two of his followers to give all the other tubs a good stir-up, the result being a most horrible odour of such extent that, but for the breeze blowing and their getting on the windward side, it would have been unbearable.
But it had not the slightest effect upon the beachcomber, who stood looking on while Black Jack and a companion heaved together and tried to overturn the oldest tub, but without result.
A yell to the other two brought them up, and with their aid the tub of malodorous thick water was gradually overturned, and the foul water poured off, to sink at once into the thirsty sand.
“Hold hard,” cried the beachcomber, when the bottom was nearly reached. “Water.”
Three black fellows ran off with a bucket each and returned to Jack, who poured one in and gave it a swirl round, handed the bucket to be refilled, allowed the contents of the tub to settle, and then began to pour out the top very gently.
Carey was so intensely interested that for the time being he forgot his painful position.
“I say,” he cried, “these black chaps have done this sort of thing before.”
“Hundreds of times,” growled their chief, and then he was silent, while even the doctor began to feel that his eagerness to see the contents of the tub was mastering his misery and disappointment that the pearls should fall into such hands.
So they watched till half a dozen buckets had been severally poured in and emptied out, and then there was a hoarse chuckle from the beachcomber.
“I’ll forgive yer,” he growled. “You aren’t done so badly for me. That’s a nice take o’ pearls, and there’s some fine big uns among ’em. Up higher, Jack, and let the sun dry them a bit. Next one.”
The tub was tilted so that the last drops of water could run out while the next was being emptied.
Carey’s eyes met the doctor’s, and the boy ground his teeth softly as he gazed in at the soft lustrous pearls drying rapidly from the heat of the air.
There they lay along the side of the great cask, seed pearls, pearls of fair size, and here and there great almond-shaped ones, while fewest of all were the softly rounded perfectly shaped gems, running from the size of goodly peas to here and there that of small marbles, lustrous, soft, and of that delicate creamy tint that made them appear like solidified drops of molten moonlight, fallen to earth in the silence of some tropical night.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned away to watch the emptying of the next tub, which ended with even better result than the first.
“Bucket,” said the beachcomber, when this second watering had come to an end, and Jack, who knew what was expected of him, took a bunch of grass to make a brush, crept into the first tub, and while one of his fellows held the bucket ready, the pearls, worth scores, perhaps hundred of pounds, were swept into it.
The next tub was served the same, and then after the other tubs had had a final stir the beachcomber cried abruptly:
“On board. That’s enough for to-day. I’m dying for a drink.”
“Oh,” muttered Carey to himself, “I wish I could stop you drinking.”
Chapter Twenty.
The party which had been out with the canoe reached the vessel with a goodly supply of beautiful fish just at the same time as the whale-boat with the treasured-up pearls, over which Mallam had sat chuckling all the way back, pointing out to Carey the beauties of the large ones, and glancing furtively the while at the doctor in his delight over that gentleman’s discomfiture.
Carey was bitterly annoyed, but he took it all pretty coolly.
“All right, old gentleman,” he said to himself. “You’ve only set your slaves to work and washed and cleaned them for us; we’ll have them all back again when you’ve cleaned the rest.”
But Carey had not been without his anxious feelings, though, all the time, regarding Bostock; and his first glance as he ascended the side of the stranded steamer was directed to the spot where he had last seen the old sailor with the row of black fellows watching him.
But a chill ran through the boy, for there was no sign of Bostock, and the ten blacks, his guards, were all forward in a cluster.
Carey sighed with relief the next minute, for, hearing them on deck, he thrust his head out of the cook’s galley, and the boy grasped the fact that Bostock was busy preparing dinner, and the blacks were attracted there by the smell.
Directly after the old sailor had an addition to his work in the shape of fish to fry, and Carey seized the opportunity the examination of the fish afforded to whisper to the old sailor.
“Well,” he said, “you’re all right.”
“Yes, I’m all right, my lad, but I were a bit mouldy when I saw you go, and went and got ready for action.”
“Yes? What did you do?”
“Went and shoved the poker in the oven stove, sir; for I says to myself they tames lions and tigers in wild beast shows with red-hot irons, and if these here wild, black fellows tries on any of their games with me, I’ll try if I can’t tame them.”
“Capital!” said Carey, eagerly.
“I calls that an out-and-out good idee, Master Carey, and look here, sir, when it comes for a strike for liberty, I’ll undertake to tackle the black uns with a couple o’ hot pokers and a few kettles o’ boiling water, and if I don’t clear the deck I’m a Dutchman, which can’t be, for I was born in Bromley-by-Bow.”
“We’ll win yet, Bob,” whispered Carey, eagerly.
“Course we will, my lad, only take it coolly, and go about as if your comb were reg’larly cut and your spurs took off. I say.”
“Yes?”
“I shall expect you and the doctor to tackle Old King Cole.”
“Yes, yes, but we must have arms.”
“Course you must. You wait.”
“Yes. Were the blacks civil to you?”
“Yes, but they sat and gloated over me as if they were picking out tit-bits, sir, till I felt all cold down the back, and as it didn’t seem the ripe time for the hot poker, for they didn’t begin to show fight, I thought I’d try a bit o’ civility.”
“Yes, what did you do?”
“Give ’em a civiliser.”
“I don’t understand you, Bob. Oh, you mean you gave them some spirits.”
“Tchah! Think I’m off my head, sir? Sperrits? Why, ever so little drives those black chaps mad as hatters. No,” whispered the old sailor, with a low chuckle, “I beckoned to one of ’em, and he come down off the rail where he’d been sitting in a row like a tame monkey with his mates, and he followed me, club in hand, to the stooard’s place, where I got a big jar and a table fork, and brought it back on deck to where his mates were waiting, and down they hopped as soon as they saw the jar, and began to dance round, singing, ‘’ticky! ’ticky!’ in a regular chorus.”
“Ah,” cried Carey, “they heard Black Jack call the molasses sticky.”
“Soon, though, as I cut the string and pulled off the bladder cover, and they saw it was all yaller, they began to show their teeth and snarl. ‘’Ticky! ’Ticky!’ they says again, but ‘all right, my lads,’ I says, and I sticks the fork into an onion, winks at ’em, and pops it into my mouth. Then I does the same with a gherkin, and, my word, didn’t they all change their tune! Everyone wanted a taste, so I gives the fork to the chap as come with me, makes him squat down, and claps the big brown jar between his legs.”
“Mixed pickles!” cried Carey, eagerly.
“Piccadilly, sir,” said the old sailor, correctively. “Then I makes all the rest sit round him in what you calls a silly circle.”
“Silly circle!” cried Carey, laughing. “I should think it was!”
“That’s right, sir—a black silly circle. ‘There you are, grinning idgits,’ I says; ‘now amuse yourselves with that, and while you’re busy I’ll go and cook the dinner and see if I can’t get hold o’ something for the Guvnors to cook Old King Cole’s goose.’”
“And did they eat the pickles?” said Carey, eagerly.
“Eat ’em, sir? That they did, very slow and careful too as soon as they found what they were like. They played fair too, each chap taking his bit in turn like young birds in a nest, beak wide open, bit o’ cauliflower or a couple o’ French beans popped in, beak shut, and then each chap shut his eyes, jumped up, and danced.”
“Just like children,” said Carey.
“They seemed to think the beans was some kind o’ worms or grubs, sir, and when it come to the capsicums, the chaps as got ’em rolled themselves on the deck with delight, and all the rest wanted ’em too. But I didn’t stop long; I was off, and they took no more notice o’ me till I began cooking, when they stood about to grin and smell. I got ’em, though,” said Bostock, mysteriously.
“Got what?”
“Three double guns, three revolvers, and a box o’ cartridges.”
“Oh!” whispered Carey, excitedly. “Where are they?”
“Rolled up in what’s left o’ the mains’l, and I folded it up and twisted a rope round it. Yonder it is, amidships.”
“Hi! You! Come along here,” came in the beachcomber’s harsh voice, and Carey had to hurry to him. “Come and help with these,” and he pointed to the bucket of glistening pearls. “Get me something to put them in.”
Carey thought for a moment, and then went below, to return with the first things he thought suitable, and Mallam nodded his satisfaction.
“They’ll do,” he said. “’Bout dry now. Your back’s easier than mine. Pour ’em in. No smugging—”
The pearls were carefully emptied into a couple of cigar boxes, and placed under lock and key in a small closet in the captain’s cabin, of which Mallam now took possession, while that evening his followers, who quite scorned the forecastle below deck, camped above it, close up to the bulwarks, starboard or port, according to which way the wind blew, these seeming to remind them of their humpies or wind-screens, which some of the most savage used instead of huts.
Chapter Twenty One.
Carey was not long in communicating to the doctor all he had heard from Bostock, and his words revived his companion wonderfully.
“Capital!” he said. “The fact of our being unarmed and this scoundrel keeping all the weapons out of our reach half maddened me.”
“Yes, wasn’t it horrid?” said Carey. “I felt better directly, and, do you know, I don’t think we have half so much to fear now from the blacks. I don’t feel a bit afraid of them. I can make them do just as I like; so can Bob.”
“Perhaps so, and if we were alone we could make them our obedient servants. They look up to the whites as superior beings, but they are not to be trusted, my boy. This Mallam has had them under his thumb for years, and as you must have seen, a few sharp orders from him bring out their savage instincts, their faces change, their eyes look full of ferocity, and if their white chief wished it they would kill us all without compunction.”
“And cook and eat us afterwards without salt?” said the boy, merrily.
“You laugh,” replied the doctor, “but it is a horrible fact, my boy; and if we knew all that has taken place in connection with this man’s rule over them, we should have some blood-curdling things to dwell upon.”
“I don’t feel afraid,” said Carey, coolly. “Of course, I should if it came to such a state of affairs as you hint at. But if it came to the worst, I should jump overboard and try to swim ashore.”
“To be taken by a shark or a crocodile?”
“Well, that would be a more natural way of coming to one’s end, sir. But, pooh! we’re not going to be beaten, doctor. We must get Mr Dan Mallam—Old King Cole, Bob calls him—shut up below somewhere and out of sight of the blacks. They’d obey us then, and we should be all right. Why, we’re not going to be afraid of one man.”
“One man?” said the doctor.
“Yes, one man. He’s only one man when he’s alone. I felt yesterday that we had twenty-one enemies. Now I feel that we’ve only one. Bob says we must wait.”
“Yes, it is good advice,” replied the doctor, “and we will wait. Carey, my lad, we must bend to circumstances till our chance comes. There, I have been behaving in a poor, cowardly way.”
“Oh, nonsense, sir!”
“I have, Carey, and there is no disguising it; but I am going to pluck up now. Let the scoundrel go on thinking we are submitting and are as much his servant as the blacks are.”
“Till the right time comes, sir, and he wakes up to the fact that he’s our prisoner. I say, if a ship came in sight and saw us we could hand him over and he’d be taken right off and treated as a criminal.”
“Exactly. It seemed very galling to see him seize the pearls.”
“Yes,” said Carey, “but let him think they’re his, and the ship, and all below. We know better.”
This was a trifling bit of conversation, but from that hour hope grew stronger in the breasts of the three oddly made prisoners and slaves of such a king. Their semi-captivity seemed more bearable, and it showed in their looks and actions, the beachcomber noting it and showing a grim kind of satisfaction.
“That’s right,” he said. “Glad to see you are all settling down and making the best of it. It’s no use to go kicking against stone walls or rocks. Be good boys, and I won’t be very hard on you. You’ll eat and drink your food better, and instead o’ grizzling you’ll enjoy yourselves and get nice and fat. My pack, too, will like you all the better. I don’t think I shall let ’em have that ugly chap Bostock, though; he cooks too well.”
But Carey took matters, according to the doctor’s ideas, too easily—too freely. He did not shrink from speaking out and taking liberties with his position. It was as if he had forgotten that he was a prisoner, and he pretty well did as he liked.
“Here, what are you after, youngster? Where are you going?”
“Along with the pack to get cocoanuts,” said Carey, coolly.
“I never told you,” growled the old fellow, fiercely.
“No, but I want to see them get the nuts down,” said Carey, nonchalantly, and he went.
It was the same when a party of the blacks went fishing, which was nearly every day, so that there was always an ample supply, and the boy returned flushed and brown, full of the adventures he had had.
Black Jack now took to heading the fishing expeditions, and always looked after Carey at starting time, grinning and making signs suggestive of hauling up the fish and hitting them over the heads with a nulla-nulla, while the crew of the outrigger canoe always greeted the boy with a grin of satisfaction.
“They are all awfully civil to me now,” said Carey to Bostock, “but I think it’s a good deal due to the ticky-ticky. I say, Bob, how long will the molasses last?”
“Oh, some time yet, sir.”
“But when the last jar’s eaten?”
“Then you must try the pickles, sir. And when that’s done, as it used to say on a big picture on the walls in London, ‘If you like the pickles, try the sauce.’ There’s no end o’ bottles o’ sauce.”
“Are there? Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. There’s a big consignment, as they call it, sent from London to Brisbane. One part o’ the hold’s chock full o’ cases. Why, there’s a lot o’ sugar things too. Oh, we shall find enough to keep them beggars going for a long time yet.”
Meantime the great tubs had all been emptied with more or less satisfactory results, and re-filling began with the accompanying stacking of the shells. The pearls were stowed away in cigar boxes, which were emptied for the purpose, the beachcomber now taking to smoking some of those turned out, and giving an abundance to Carey, who took them eagerly, always carrying several in his pocket.
“Surely you are not going to smoke those, my boy?” said the doctor, who looked quite aghast. “Wait a few years before you try anything of that kind.”
“Why?” said the boy, with an arch look. “Because if you begin now you will most likely be laying up a store of trouble for the future in the shape of a disordered digestion, which may hang about you all your life.”
“I’m not going to smoke them,” said Carey, laughing. “Look here, I roll each one up tight in a bit of paper, and then cut it with a sharp knife into six, ready to give the black fellows if they behave themselves. They’ll do anything for me for a bit of tobacco.”
“But don’t they ever try to take it away from you?”
“Not now. They tried snatching once or twice, but I gave the one who did a good sharp crack, and they left it off, for I’m always fair to them.”
“A dangerous game to play.”
“Oh, no. The others always laugh at the one who’s hit. They don’t seem to mind taking a crack from me.”
Those fishing trips were an intense pleasure to Carey, for there was so much that was novel. Now fish with scales as brilliant as the feathers of humming-birds would be caught; now the blacks would be warning their companions to beware of the black and yellow or yellow snakes.
“Mumkull—kill a fellow,” Black Jack said, and to emphasise his meaning he put out a hand in the water towards one of the basking serpents, snatched it back as if bitten, and went through a regular pantomime indicative of his sufferings. First he drew up one leg, then the other, threw himself on his back in the bottom of the canoe, kicked out, threw his arms in the air, straightened himself out, rolled over, and then, with a wonderful display of strength, curved his spine and sprang over back again, repeating the performance, which was wonderfully like the flopping of a freshly caught roach in a punt, even to the beating of the tail, which was here represented by the man’s legs. By degrees this grew more slow; then there was a flap at intervals, finishing with one heavy rap, and he lay quite still as if dead.
“Dat a way,” he cried, raising his head and grinning hugely. “Mumkull—kill a fellow.”
But Carey’s greatest treats were upon the hunting expeditions made by the beachcomber’s blacks ashore to obtain fresh meat in the way of a delicacy or two for their chief and something substantial for themselves.
One day Carey was gazing rather disconsolately at the shore and wondering when the time would come for him and his companions to be free again, when Black Jack bounded to his side, making the boy start round, to find the man in a menacing attitude, his teeth bare, eyes wide open displaying scarcely anything but the whites, for he was squinting so horribly that his pupils had disappeared behind his thick nose, while the club he held was quivering as if he were about to strike. The suddenness of the approach startled Carey for the moment, and he leaped back, but the reaction came as quickly, and with doubled fist he rushed at the black; but the latter was too quick, leaping aside, and Carey’s second attack, which took the form of a flying kick, was also unsuccessful.
Black Jack’s face was now covered with a series of good-tempered wrinkles.
“Come ’long,” he cried. “Kedge bird—wallaby. Be ticky-ticky, up a tree.”
“Be ticky-ticky?” said the boy, wonderingly.
“Ess. Come ’long; be ticky-ticky. Buzz–zz–uzz,” he went, with a wonderfully good imitation of the whirr of an insect’s wings, while he made his hand describe the dartings to and fro.
“Big fly so,” he cried, and drawing his boomerang from the hair girdle, he took a few steps, whirled it a moment or two, and then hurled it towards the shore. “Buzz—hum!” he cried, and then he stood grinning with delight at the boy’s admiration of the gyrations made by the curious implement.
At the first throw it seemed to Carey that it would drop as soon as the force was exhausted into the sea, where the hard wood must cause it to sink. But nothing of the kind; it went skimming over the water like some gigantic insect, and at last made a graceful curve, rose up on high quivering and fluttering, and came back till it was over the deck, and then came twirling down.
“Big tree, ticky-ticky, fly dat how.”
“Oh, I see; fly ticky-ticky,” cried Carey. “Honey?”
“Good ticky-ticky,” said the black, licking his fingers and smacking his lips. “Come ’long.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” cried the boy, and the next minute he was over the side and in the boat, where half-a-dozen more of the blacks were waiting and received him with a frantic shout of delight, flourishing their paddles, which they plunged into the smooth water of the lagoon as soon as Black Jack had dropped to his place; and away they went, with the latter standing up beside Carey.
As they were passing round the bows, Bostock’s head suddenly appeared over the side, and at a sign from the boy the blacks ceased rowing.
“Where away, lad?” said the old sailor.
“Ashore, hunting wallabies or something.”
“I say, young gentleman, is it safe to go alone with those chaps?”
“Oh, yes; there’s nothing to mind. Haven’t I been fishing with ’em lots of times?”
“Yes, but that was on the water, my lad,” said Bostock, shaking his head.
“Bob—Bob, come along; kedge wallaby—snakum—ticky-ticky.”
“Who’s to do the cooking if I do?” growled Bostock.
“Cookie, come kedge ticky-ticky.”
“No. I say, my lad, keep your weather eye open.”
“Both of them, Bob. I’ll take care.”
The paddles were plunged in again, and the boat glided onward.
“I don’t half like it,” muttered Bostock. “That there boy’s too wentersome. S’pose they got hungry—they most always are—and took it into their heads to make a fire. Ugh! They aren’t to be trusted, but I b’leeve they all like him and would be precious sorry when they got back and Old King Cole asked where he was. There’d be a row and a bit o’ shooting, I dessay, for it’s amazing, that it is, amazing, the way the old vagabone has took to our lad. But I don’t like his going off with ’em, and with nothing better than a bit of a toothpick of a knife. Wouldn’t be long before he got hold of a club, though, I know.”
Bostock went back to his galley shaking his head, and at the same time Carey was mentally shaking his own.
“An old stupid,” he said. “I wish he hadn’t said that. Just as if it was likely that Black Jack or either of the others would hurt me without Old King Cole was there to say ‘Css!’ to them and hound them on. Wouldn’t hurt me, would you, Black Jack?” he said aloud.
“Hey? Wood hurt um?” cried the man, and he pulled the boy on one side, dropped on his knees, and began to feel about the bottom of the canoe with his hand. “No hurt.”
“No; all right now,” said Carey, smiling. “Here, Jackum, I want to learn to throw the boomerang. Give me hold.”
The boy made a snatch at the crescent-moon-like weapon, and got hold; but the black seized it too, shouting, “No, no, no!” and his companions began to shout what sounded like a protest.
“No, no throw. Go bottom.”
“I should make it come back.”
The black grinned knowingly.
“Jackum show soon. Jackum fro.”
He sent the strange weapon flying on before them, and cleverly caught it as it returned; but then he stuck it in his girdle again, shaking his head.
“Go bottom,” he said.
Carey was disappointed, but his attention was taken up directly by something more exciting, for as the canoe glided along, with the outrigger literally skipping over the water, the boy suddenly became conscious of what seemed for the moment like another canoe of nearly the same size, sunk beneath the surface and gliding along at the same speed.
For the moment he thought it must be the canoe’s shadow somehow cast beside them, but the next moment he grasped the fact that it was a great fish, probably a shark, which had come in through the opening with the last high tide, and was now on the prowl.
There was no doubt about it, for the blacks had seen it, and they laughed as they saw their passenger shrink to the other side and lean over towards the outrigger.
The next moment Jackum drew his attention with a touch, and began making hideous grimaces at the creature, while the others began to shout and were apparently calling it every opprobrious name that their limited vocabulary supplied.
But the monster, which must have been some fourteen feet long, only rose a little so that his black triangular fin appeared above the surface.
Jackum grinned, stooped, and picked up one of a bundle of spears which lay along at the side, and handed it to the boy, signing to him to stand up in the boat.
It was not much of a weapon, being only a straight bamboo sapling with an ill-made point hardened in the fire.
“Gib big poke,” cried the black.
“If I don’t they’ll think I’m afraid,” thought Carey; so he seized the spear, feeling not the slightest inclination for his task, and drove the point down on the shark’s back.
It was an unlucky stroke, for, instead of penetrating as intended, it glided over the slimy skin, while, overbalancing himself in consequence of meeting with no resistance, Carey to his horror found himself following his stroke, and he would have plunged overboard had not a muscular black arm darted like a great snake about his waist and plucked him back. For a moment or two the boy gasped, but he recovered himself directly.
“Shake hands, Jackum. Thankye.”
The black grinned, and took the extended hand for a few seconds.
“Let’s try again,” said Carey; but the shark had sunk down out of sight.
“Ticklum,” said the black, grinning. “Come soon.”
Carey was disappointed, for he wanted to redeem his character, though it was not an easy task to try and emulate the blacks with their own weapons. But Jackum was right; it was not long before the great fish re-appeared, now on the other side of the canoe, rising slowly till its fin was above water, its intention being apparently to pick one of the paddlers out for a meal.
His appearance there, however, was not approved of, the blacks by their actions showing that they considered it highly probable that their visitor would get entangled with the bamboos of the outrigger and capsize the boat.
Jackum took the lead by snatching the spear from Carey, evidently considering that the position required skilled instead of amateur manipulation; and, as his fellows turned their paddles into choppers and struck heavily at the shark’s back, Jackum drove his spear down with all his might.
It went home in spite of its clumsy make and miserable point, for in a moment it was twitched out of the strong hands that held it, the water came flying in a shower over Carey, consequent upon a tremendous blow delivered by the fish’s tail; then there was a violent eddy at the boat’s side, a great shovel-shaped head rose, and the monster shot out of the water, rising several feet and falling with a crash across the main boom of the outrigger, taking it down lower and lower, while Carey clung to the other side of the boat. The water came creeping in over the lower side, and they would, he felt, be taken down and lie at the mercy of the enemy the blacks had tried to destroy.
In rushed the water faster and faster, and Carey looked towards the shore to see how far it was to swim, when all at once the weight glided off the great bamboo, which rose quickly, the boat was level again, but half full of water, and the blacks chattered and grinned with delight, as they began shovelling the water out on both sides with their paddles.
Jackum used his hands, but stopped short directly after to point.
“Tickum, tickum. Mumkull,” he cried, and Carey made out the spear-shaft performing some strange gyrations some twenty yards away, before it once more disappeared.
As Carey owned afterwards to the doctor and Bostock, he still felt a little white, and his heart was beating heavily. But it calmed down rapidly as he felt that the worst that was to happen to him was to feel his legs wet until the sun had dried his trousers and boots, while the blacks chattered away, taking it as an every-day occurrence, rapidly emptying the boat, and once more in high glee paddling hard for the shore, where the great enjoyments of the day were to begin.
Chapter Twenty Two.
As Carey landed he glanced at the now enormous stack of pearl shells and at the tubs once more well filled with oysters, for the beachcomber had not let his men be idle. But the sight of the treasures of which they had been robbed only irritated the boy, and he turned away to forget it in encountering the grinning face of Black Jack close by.
“Come, fro boomerang,” he said, handing the wooden scimitar-like blade, and pointing along the sands.
“Ah,” cried the boy, eagerly, “give me hold.”
As he caught the boomerang, the other blacks started off along the sands as if they were going to field for a ball, and Carey laughed as he prepared to throw.
“It will begin to sail up before it gets to them,” he thought to himself, laughingly, and he rather enjoyed the idea of the big, lithe fellows running through the hot sand in vain.
Then, imitating, as he thought, the black’s action exactly, Carey sent the weapon spinning along about a yard above the sand; but it did not begin to rise, and before it dropped one of the men caught it cleverly and sent it back with such accuracy that Jackum caught it in turn and handed it to the boy.
Carey threw again half-a-dozen times, for the curved blade to be caught by one or the other, no matter how wildly diverse were the casts, and sent back to Jackum, who never missed a catch, standing perfectly calm and at the proper moment darting out his right or left hand, when flip, he had it safely and handed it back, grinning with delight.
“White boy no fro boomerang,” he said.
“No,” cried Carey, who was hot and irritable with the failure attending his exertions. “You’re cheating me; this one won’t go.”
“No make um go,” cried Jackum, slapping his thighs and dancing with glee.
“No; it’s a bad one; it won’t fly back.”
“Yes, fly bird come back.”
“But it doesn’t when I throw it.”
“No, won’t come back.”
“And it won’t when those black fellows throw.”
Black Jackum understood him perfectly and threw himself down on the hot sand to roll himself over in the exuberance of his delight.
“Look here,” cried Carey, growing more irritated; “you’re a cheat. You knew that thing wouldn’t go when you gave it to me. Get up, or I’ll kick you.”
He made a rush to put his threat in execution, but the black rolled over and sprang up laughing.
“White boy get wild likum big Dan. No fro boomerang. Look, see.”
“It’s too bad, you’re a cheat. Bad one. Bah!” cried Carey, throwing the wooden blade down. “You’ve changed it.”
“Look, see,” cried the black, catching it up; and in the most effortless way he sent it skimming along the sand right away, full fifty yards beyond the farthest fielder, before it began to mount high in the air, executing a peculiar series of twirls and flutterings as it came back, till the momentum died out as it dropped not half-a-dozen yards from Carey’s feet.
“Ah!” cried the boy, excitedly, “I see how you do it now. Here, let me try.”
“Jackum fro makum come back ebry war.”
“Yes, but let me try.”
Bang, bang, came softened by the distance, and, looking sharply in the direction of the stranded vessel, two faint puffs of white smoke were visible.
“What does that mean?” cried Carey, as he saw the fielders come running towards him.
“Big Dan shoot, shoot. Say go hunt, get bird to cookie, cookie. Come, run fas’.”
He set the example and plunged at once into the great cocoanut grove, followed by Carey and his companions.
“Big Dan no see now,” cried Jackum, and he grinned and pointed up at the nuts overhead. “Good, good?”
“Yes,” cried Carey; “let’s have some.”
The black said something to his companions, two of whom took off their plaited hair girdles, joined them together, and then the band was passed round a likely tree, knotted round one of the wearers’ loins, and the next minute he was apparently walking like a monkey up the tree, shifting the band dexterously and going on and on till he reached the crown of leaves and the fruit, which he began screwing off and pitching down into the sand, where they were caught up, the pointed end of a club-handle inserted, and the great husk wrenched off. Then a few chops with a stone axe made a hole in the not yet hardened shell, and a nut with its delicious contents of sweet, sub-acid milk and pulp was handed to the boy, the giver grinning with satisfaction as he saw how it was enjoyed.
The blacks were soon similarly occupied, each finishing a nut, and then Jackum led the way inland.
“Are you going to the river?” asked Carey.
“No, walk, kedge fis’,” said Jackum, shaking his head. “Bully-woolly dar.”
“Bully-woolly?” said Carey, wonderingly.
Jackum threw himself on the ground, with his legs stiffened out behind, and his hands close to his sides. Then with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of a crocodile creeping over the sand, and then made a snap at the boy’s leg with his teeth, making believe to have caught him, and to be dragging his imaginary prey down to the water, ending by wagging his legs from side to side like a tail.
“I see,” cried Carey. “Crocodiles. Yes, I know.”
“Big, big. Mumkull black fellow, white boy. Come ’long.”
Jackum started off, followed by Carey and the rest in single file, their leader with his head down and eyes reading the ground from right to left as if in search of something lost. He made straight for the forest, but selected the more open parts where the undergrowth was scarce, so as to get quickly over the ground, stopping suddenly by a great decayed tree, about which his companions set to work with the sharp ends of their club-handles, and in a very short time they had dug out of the decayed wood some three double handfuls of thick white grubs as big as a man’s fingers, and these were triumphantly transferred to the grass bag one man had hanging to his girdle.
Starting once more, Jackum suddenly caught sight of traces on the ground which made him begin to proceed cautiously, his companions closing up, club, spear, or boomerang in hand, and then all at once there was a rush and a spring, then another, and a couple of little animals bounded away, kangaroo fashion, in a series of leaps through the open, park-like forest, till as they were crossing a widish patch Carey saw the use of the boomerang, one of which weapons skimmed after the retreating animals, struck it, and knocked it over, to lie kicking, till one of the men ran swiftly up and put it out of its misery with one blow of his club.
The other was missed, the boomerang hurled just going over its back and returning to the thrower after the fashion of a disappointed dog, while the little animal took refuge in a tree, leaping from bough to bough till brought down by one of a little shower of melon-headed clubs.
Jackum held up the two trophies with a grin of delight, tied their legs together, and hung them on a stump.
“Back, come fetchum,” he said, nodding.
The hunt continued till a couple of brush turkeys sprang up and began to run and flutter among the bushes, but only to be brought down by the unerring boomerangs; and these were also hung against a tree ready for picking up as the hunting party returned.
The traces on a sandy patch, showing that a snake had crossed and left its zigzag groove, were next spied, and a little tracking showed the maker of the marks coiled up on an ant-heap basking in the sun.
The reptile was on the alert, though, and raised its spade-shaped head high above its coils, displaying a pair of tiny diamond-bright eyes for a few moments, before a blow from the end of a spear dashed it down, broken and quivering.
“Mumkull—bite a fellow,” said Jackum. “Makum swellum. Brrr!”
Carey grasped the fact that the snake was of a poisonous tendency, and it was left writhing on the ant-heap, with the little creatures swarming in an army out of their holes to commence the task of picking its bones into skeleton whiteness.
A couple more large turkey-like birds were brought down and hung up in the shady forest they were now passing, the spreading branches of the huge trees being most grateful interposed between Carey’s head and the sun. Here the blacks proceeded with the greatest care, starting no less than three snakes, which were allowed to scuffle off. At last one of the blacks uttered a faint cry, and he took the lead, following the trail of something quickly, till he stopped short beneath a huge fig-tree whose boughs spread far and wide.
The black here turned to Carey and pointed upward with his spear to where, half hidden by the dense foliage, a clump of knots and folds upon some interlacing horizontal boughs revealed the presence of a carpet snake, whose soft warm brown and chocolate markings of various shades were strikingly beautiful.
“Ugh! the monster!” exclaimed Carey, shrinking back. “Are you going to kill it?”
“Mumkull, eatum. Good, good,” cried Jackum, and the noise made below roused the sleeping serpent, whose head rose up, showing the mark where the mouth opened, and Carey could see the glistening forked tongue darting in and out through the orifice at the apices of the jaws. And now the creature seemed all in motion, fold gliding over fold, and one great loop hanging down from the bough some fifteen feet above their heads.
“I mustn’t run off,” thought Carey; “but it looks a dangerous brute.”
He stood fast then, and the attack began, the blacks hurling their clubs up at the reptile with such accuracy and force that in less than a minute the creature had been struck in several places, and was striking out with its jaws and lashing its tail furiously.
Another blow from a whizzing boomerang made the creature cease its attempts to get to a safer part of the tree and writhe so violently in a horrible knot of convolutions that it lost its hold upon the branch and came down through the interlacing boughs with a rush and a thud upon the ground.
Here it seemed to see its aggressors for the first time, and, gathering itself up, its head rose with the jaws distended, and it struck at the nearest black.
But his enemy was beforehand. Holding his spear with both hands he used it as a British yeoman of old handled a quarter-staff, and a whistling blow caught the reptile a couple of feet below the head, which dropped inert, the vertebrae being broken, and a series of blows from other spears, one aimed at the tail, finished the business.
The danger was over, and the serpent began to untwine itself, till it lay out, a long heaving mass of muscles, completely disabled and dying after the slow fashion of its kind.
“Why, it must be sixteen or eighteen feet long,” thought Carey, and then he stood looking on while the delighted blacks, who looked upon their prize as a delicacy that would be exclusively their own, cut a few canes, twined them into a loose rope, made a noose round the writhing creature’s neck, and after one of the party had passed this rope over a convenient bough the reptile was hauled up so that the tail was clear of the ground and safe from the attacks of marauding ants.
Then the hunt was continued. Several splendid birds were knocked over, and they were now high up in the river valley, where the great monitor lizards haunted the sun-baked volcanic stones.
“Knock one of those down, Jackum,” said Carey, who was anxious to see how the blacks would deal with the tail-lashing creatures.
“Plenty, plenty,” said the black, grinning; but he obeyed directly after, sending his boomerang whizzing at one, which suddenly bounded on to a rock and turned defiantly with open jaws upon those who had interrupted his noon-tide sleep.
Carey had ocular proof that the nude blacks were cautious enough to keep their skins clear of the fearful lash formed by the steel-wire-like tails. For the boomerang struck the distended jaws with a sharp crack, and the next moment the reptile was down, with its silvery-grey scales flashing in the sun like oxidised silver, as it lashed its tail about like a coil-whip. It was not round Jackum’s legs, however, when he ran up to recover his boomerang, but round and round the spear-shaft which he held ready for the purpose.
A few minutes later the great lizard was dead. “Plenty cookie now,” said Jackum, and they began to return, picking up their trophies as they went back exactly over their trail.
“They’ll only cut a piece out of the carpet snake,” thought Carey. “It’s too big to take back.”
But he was mistaken. That serpent was too fat and juicy, and promised too many pleasant cookings, to be left behind, and it was soon lowered down, to be dragged after the party by two of the blacks, who harnessed themselves to the canes about the reptile’s neck, the smooth hard scales making the elongated body glide easily enough over the grass and sandy earth.
“But I’m not going to ride in the canoe with that horrid beast,” muttered Carey. “It’s alive and moving still.”
But he did, for, when all their game had been successively picked up and they reached the edge of the lagoon, the great serpent was dragged in and fitted itself in the bottom of the canoe, and the rest was thrown fore and aft. Carey set his teeth, for he dared not let the blacks see him shrink, and stepped calmly in, to sit down with his knees to his chin and the thickest part of the serpent passing round behind his heels, the head and tail lying forward, with the paddlers sitting inside the loop it formed.
They had cargo enough to make the slight vessel seem heavily-laden, but it was sent rapidly across the lagoon, the blacks eager and triumphant to display their successful efforts to their companions, who were all perched up on the bulwarks on either side of the gangway, face outward, waiting to see the portion that would come to their share.