Chapter Forty Eight.
The Help that came.
In those brief few minutes despair and dogged determination were turned into the mingled emotions of triumph and delight, for the two boats, after giving two or three volleys at the schooner, whose crew contented themselves with hoisting a couple more sails to increase their speed, came on as hard as the men could row, their crews cheering in French and English with all their might, while in the stern of one the Count stood up waving his cap; in that of the other Captain Chubb, looking grim and stern, stood like a statue, his left foot on the thwart before him, his right resting upon the muzzle of a musket.
“Here, I don’t feel as if I’d got a cheer left in me, lads,” cried Joe Cross to his tired companions on board the stranded schooner; “but we must give them one, or they’ll think we aren’t much obliged to them for coming, and there’s no gammon about it, we are, and no mistake.”
“Cheer, yes!” cried Rodd. “With all your might, my lads. Take your time from me. Now then, as you never cheered before—Hooray!”
There was no want of heartiness either in that or in those which followed, to be returned as enthusiastically from the two boats, which were rapidly nearing, so that in a few minutes Rodd and his uncle were wringing the hands of the bluff old skipper, while it was observable that all three kept their backs to the French Count and his son till they came up together, when the three started round in surprise, going through a curious kind of pantomime as if they were astonished to see the Frenchmen there.
Meanwhile a regular fraternisation had gone on between the crews, and after a mere glance at the three masts of the schooner, which were standing out of the water about a couple of hundred yards away, the skipper’s whole attention was directed to their own vessel, whose keel was now fast in the mud, and which was beginning to heel over slightly.
“Then I suppose you took her again, doctor?” he said gruffly.
“Well, hardly,” said Uncle Paul. “It was Cross and the lads who did that.”
“More shame to him, then,” growled the skipper. “I should have thought you were seaman enough, Joe Cross, to have kept her afloat and not run her aground like this.”
“Well, I do call that ungrateful,” cried Rodd. “I say, uncle, oughtn’t he to have saved the schooner from being taken?”
“That’s one for me, doctor,” said the skipper, with a grim smile and a twinkle in his eye. “The boys of this here generation seem to grow up pretty sharp. But he’s quite right. They pretty well caught a weasel asleep that time.”
“But how was it?” cried Rodd.
“How was it, my lad? Why, we was hard at work one morning, when up the river comes another of them nice respectable schooners in the oil trade. Oil trade, indeed! Rank slavers, that’s what they were, carrying on trade with one of those murderous chiefs up country! Set of black Satans as attack villages and carry off the poor wretches to sell to your oil traders for sending off to the plantations. Well, one don’t like killing fellow-creatures, or seeing them pulled down below by the crocs, but somehow I don’t feel so very uncomfortable about them as we had to fight with and have got the worst of it. What are you smiling at, young Squire Rodd?”
“I was only thinking how you always hated the slave trade, captain.”
“Right,” said Captain Chubb, with a friendly nod. “Well, the schooner sends her skipper aboard the three-master. Then he comes to where I was busy at work with the men, putting the finishing touches to the brig, and tells me and the Count a long tale about his having come up to join his friend the Spanish captain, who he hears has gone up the river for a row. Then he goes back to his schooner, makes her snug, and it seemed as if him and his men had all gone to sleep, when it was me.”
“You?” cried Rodd wonderingly.
“Well, what they call metyphorically, my boy, for I was wide awake enough; but I couldn’t see anything beyond the Dagobert, nor the Count neither, for he wanted her afloat. Then the time went on, and all very quiet, till just in the middle of one of the hottest days when I was in full feather, thinking that I could tell the Count that night that the job was done, and we could let her sit the water again next day when the tide served, all at once we had a surprise. There were only four or five men aboard the schooner, and I suppose they were keeping their watch, but just all at once a couple of boats rowed up to them, one from one schooner, one from the other, and before any of us knew what was up, our fellows were swimming for the shore, and if it hadn’t been for the Count, who was on the look-out for crocs, and let them have two barrels twice over, neither of the poor fellows would have joined their mates as had been working with me.”
The speaker turned to the Count, who nodded his head quickly, and then looked at his son as much as to say, Yes, this is quite true.
“Well,” continued the skipper, “I felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of me, and as soon as I could speak and quite understand that my schooner had been took, I began to bully-rag the poor lads who had just escaped with their lives, for, not having time to get a gun or a cutlass, they had been almost as helpless on board as they were in the water among them reptiles. I couldn’t even believe it then, and began questioning the lads, and you might have knocked me down with a feather, as people say, and the Count there with another, when they all swore that our Spanish skipper had led the men from his three-master in one of the boats. Then we began to see the worst.”
The skipper turned with a questioning look at the Count again, to receive a second grave nod, while this time the latter laid his hand upon his son’s shoulder, and a long eager glance passed between them.
“Well, I don’t know that I have much more to say,” said the skipper, “only that it was a bad job, being a fresh one we had got to tackle and meant to do. The Count here fitted me and my lads up with some weepuns, and we settled that as soon as it was dark we’d man two of the brig’s boats, and board first one and then the other of the two schooners. Well, we tried, but they were waiting for us, and I don’t know how we escaped, for they met us with such a fire that if we had kept on both boats must have been sunk, and we never got within touch of either of the enemy, but drifted down with the tide; and somehow just then I suppose there must have been a flood somewhere up the river, down came the water in a way that we couldn’t meet, and it was only by pretty good seamanship on the part of the Frenchmen more than ours, though we helped all we knew, that we were able to keep afloat; and since then we have been right down to the sea, and it’s been very hard to get enough to eat. But somehow we managed to keep alive, shooting what we could and catching a fish or two now and then as we came up the river again. For of course we were not going to give up without finishing our job; and it seems to me that we got here just at the right time, and found that things weren’t half so bad as we thought; eh, Count?”
“My friend,” replied the latter, “how can I ever repay you?”
“Oh, let’s talk about that, sir, when I have done something to keep the Maid of Salcombe upright and finished my other job and the brig’s afloat, which it seems to me we can manage at high water; but I never bargained for having our schooner to set right too through the lubberly management of that chap Joe Cross. There,” he cried angrily, “I can’t and won’t say another word till I have had something to eat, for we are all half starved.”
“Get on board the schooner, then, every one,” cried the doctor, “for I have got my work here.”
It was a fact, for now the fight was over the men began to stiffen, and several unexpectedly turned faint, it proving that though not a single man was seriously wounded, nearly every one of those who had followed Joe Cross in his gallant achievement of boarding the schooner, and in beating down the slaver’s crew when they forced their way out of the cabin, was more or less injured and had been doing his best to hide the knife stabs and contusions he had received.
It was during the next two or three days that the doctor proved that he was in his element, and that his knowledge of natural history was not confined to his ordinary scientific pursuits, for no surgeon could have been more skilful in his treatment of wounds, no physician more able in alleviating the fever which supervened.
It was a busy time for all, for not only was there the grounded schooner to guard from going over, but strict watch to keep for the return of enemies, and then, when the high tide served, all hands were at work, save the poor disappointed fellows whose injuries kept them to their bunks, in raising the brig to her old proud position. As she floated out, herself once more, and dropped anchor in the stream, the men literally yelled themselves hoarse, while on the following day at the Count’s request both vessels were dropping down with the tide, all on board eager to leave behind the river, which in spite of its many beauties was too full of painful recollections for its waters to be recalled without horror and disgust.
Chapter Forty Nine.
The Count’s Appeal.
The south-west coast of Africa was fading away in the distance as the two consorts with their natural history seekers rode over the dazzling silver sea. The lads were abaft the schooner’s wheel, quite inseparable now, looking down through the eddying water at the fish, which seemed to have taken the swift vessel for some mighty companion of their own nature, in whose wake they could swim along in peace without fear of lesser enemies.
About an hour before, the brig’s gig had brought the Count and his son alongside the schooner, and the former was below in the doctor’s museum-like laboratory, listening to his learned friend’s remarks upon some fresh object that, now they had returned to the ways of peace, had been fished up from just below the surface of the sea.
Four of the schooner’s crew were under an awning, lying upon a couple of doubled-up spare sails which had been spread upon the deck, and the two lads had been seated with them chatting for some little time before they strolled aft.
“How well your men look,” Morny said suddenly—“all except Joe Cross.”
“Yes, he looks rather thin and pale, doesn’t he?” said Rodd quickly; “but he isn’t ill. You saw how full of fun he was, and ready to joke about having been bled too much. Uncle says he’ll soon be well again, for he’s in such good spirits. But uncle told me quietly that it was a wonder to him none of the poor fellows were killed. But oh, I say, isn’t this nice!”
“Lazy,” said Morny.
“Oh, I don’t call it lazy. It’s so jolly to be able to hang about in the sunshine without feeling that there’s some great trouble coming on directly.”
“Ah, yes,” replied Morny, with a sigh, “and that perhaps you may not live to see me next day.”
“Well,” said Rodd, “I don’t think it’s lazy. Uncle says that after you have been at work very hard it’s like unstringing the bow; and so it is. I want to begin fishing or dredging or sounding again. I don’t want any more shooting. Now, do you know what I should like just now?”
“No.”
“I’d soon show you then that I wasn’t lazy. I should like to see one of those beautiful ripples two or three hundred yards off which show that there’s a shoal of fish feeding on the transparent what-you-may-call-’ems—I forget Uncle Paul’s name for them.”
“Well, if that would give you any satisfaction,” said Morny, laughing, “I wish that a shoal would rise.”
“Don’t you be in such a hurry; I hadn’t finished. I was going to say I should then like to see one of those great sea-serpent-like creatures rise slowly from below, to begin feeding on the fish—one of those great scientific wonders that you and your father are trying to discover and capture; for that’s it, I suppose, though you do keep so squat about it.”
“Ah–h–h!” said Morny, with a sigh; and he glanced sidewise at his young English companion.
“It is quite a joke, that it is,” continued Rodd. “It’s just as if you were jealous and afraid that uncle and I would get beforehand with you, and win the credit of the discovery for old England, instead of you carrying it off for your la belle France.”
“Ah!” sighed Morny again, with a sad smile upon his lips.
“You French chaps are so sentimental. La belle France indeed! Just as if old England or the British Isles weren’t quite as beautiful! Only we don’t go shouting about it everywhere. I say, Morny, you don’t half believe in me.”
“It is false!” cried the young Frenchman angrily. “Why, I believe in you more than in any one living—except my father.”
“Oh, indeed!” cried Rodd banteringly. “And here since I have known you I have told you everything till I haven’t a secret that I have kept from you.”
“Why, you have had no secrets,” said Morny.
“Well—no; I suppose you couldn’t call them secrets. But you’ve got one, and you have never let it out to me.”
“No,” said Morny gravely, “because it was not mine to tell. You don’t want me to be dishonourable, Rodd?”
“Why, of course I don’t, old chap. I don’t want you to tell me till you like, only it is rather a joke sometimes that you make such a mystery of what uncle and I know as well as can be.”
“You know!” cried Morny sharply.
“Why, of course I do. It’s what I say. You want—I mean, your father does—to carry off the honour of having solved the mystery of the great fish or reptile that has been talked about for the last hundred years. I say, though, there’s that other great old-world thing that they find in the rocks. What’s his name?”
Morny shook his head.
“Here, I’ve got it—the sea-sawyer! That isn’t quite right, but it sounds something like it. Why, he must have been just like a great crocodile.”
“Ugh! Don’t talk about them,” said Morny, with a shudder.
“Eh, why not? There are none of them here. I wish we could have caught one to dry or stuff, or keep in spirits. I mean quite a little one, you know. Ah, those were rather horrid times, though, and I shan’t want a specimen reptile to make me remember them.”
“No,” said Morny musingly; “we want nothing to make us recollect them.”
“But I suppose it is nearly all over now, for our voyages will soon come to an end.”
“Oh no?” cried Morny eagerly. “Why should they, now that your uncle and my father have become such friends?”
The lads both started, for those of whom they were speaking just then strolled up behind them.
“Well, boys,” said the Count gravely, “what are you two talking about?”
“Rodd was saying that he supposed our friendship would soon come to an end.”
“Indeed?” cried the Count, raising his eyebrows and turning to give a meaning glance at Uncle Paul. “Why should it, eh, my lad? I thought you and Morny had become such fast friends.”
“Yes, so we have, sir,” cried Rodd, flushing; “but I didn’t quite mean that, for I hope we shall often meet; but I thought that now we are out at sea again we should be separating. The brig will be going one way, and we shall be going another.”
“Do you wish this to be so?” said the Count, after another glance at Uncle Paul.
“I? Oh no, sir.”
“And you, Morny, my son?”
“I, my father? They should not go away if I could stop it.”
“You hear, doctor? Is not this strange after what we have been saying in the cabin. I tell you again, before long I will be quite open with you about the object of my voyage. At present I ask you not to press me.”
“I have told you,” said the doctor, smiling, “that I will not. I have told you also that my object for the short time that I shall stay down here in the south is to keep close inshore, while you tell me that you wish to be able to sail right out to sea, and free to carry out your project, whatever it may be.”
“Yes, yes, and I have told you too that you could be of the greatest service to me by following close at hand, and that I should always be most grateful if without injury to your own cruise you would keep in company with me for the present.”
“Ready to help in case of further emergencies?”
“No,” cried the Count warmly; “my ideas were not so selfish as that. But tell me this—is it urgent that we should part company now? I mean, would you suffer loss, or would your own researches be injured by keeping in company with us for say another month?”
“No–o,” said the doctor carelessly; “I am just as likely to make discoveries far out to sea as close inshore.”
“Then stay with us for the present. I ask it as a friend, while I guarantee that you shall not suffer by what you do for me.”
“Well,” said the doctor, slowly and thoughtfully, as he looked at the two lads, who were intently listening for his words, “what do you think, Rodd? Shall we sail in company with the brig for a little longer?”
“Am I to be judge, uncle?” said the boy merrily. “Yes, if you like.”
“Well, then,” said the lad, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, as he found that Morny with lips parted was gazing at him with a look of appeal, “you see, uncle, we have been together a good while now, and though we tried to help the brig we seem to have dragged it into a good deal of mischief.”
“What are you saying, Rodd?” cried Morny passionately.
“Oh, I mean that we have helped you a bit, but you have been very unlucky since we have been together. Still, if Morny doesn’t mind risking it, and doesn’t mind putting up with my jokes about la belle France, and yours, uncle, about the Emperor Napoleon—”
Morny started, and looked sharply at his father.
”—though by this time,” continued Rodd, “I suppose you, sir, have found out that at heart uncle is very fond of the Emperor, and admires him very much—”
“You impudent young scoundrel, how dare you!” growled the doctor. “Bah!” he muttered to himself, “Temper!” Then turning quickly to the Count, he said almost apologetically, “Don’t take any notice. I have spoilt him, sir; I have spoilt him. Look here, my dear sir; I shall very much regret the day when we have to part, for my own sake and for my nephew’s, for since he has had the advantage of your son’s companionship I have been in hopes that he would acquire something of his refinement and polish, and that it might lead in time to his achieving to somewhat of the carriage of a gentleman. I regret to say that so far he is as rough and boorish as ever. Still, in the hope that every one of his opportunities may not be thrown away, I shall be glad to prolong the intimacy a little longer. There, sir,” he snapped out, as he turned sharply upon Rodd, “what do you say to that?”
“It’s all right, Morny,” said the boy quietly. “Go on polishing. I’ll be more attentive now, uncle.”
Morny gave him a quick nod, and turned then to grasp Uncle Paul’s hand, while the brig and the schooner went sailing on westward ho!
Chapter Fifty.
The Doctor will not believe.
It was about a fortnight later, during which time, in deliciously calm weather, the two vessels had been cruising here and there, to the great satisfaction of the doctor, who was in a high state of delight, for he had been harvesting, as he termed it—bottling, Joe Cross said—numberless specimens of the strange creatures that swarm upon the surface of the southern Atlantic. And as they had got out so far, the doctor had been sounding Captain Chubb as to the possibility and advisability of making for that strange volcanic island known as Trinidad—not the richly verdant island of the same name that seems as if it had been once a portion of the north-east shoulder of leg-of-mutton-like South America, but the solitary island right away south-east from Bahia, which stands lonely in the ocean, the remains of the great volcanic eminence swept by the terrific seas and tempests that come up from the South Polar Ocean—an island that is the habitat of strange sea-birds, the haunt of fish, and the home and empire of those most hideous of the crustaceans, the land crabs.
Captain Chubb grunted and said he would think about it and consult the chart. As for the brig, Rodd did not banter Morny upon the subject when he came aboard, as he did pretty well every day when Rodd and his uncle had not visited the brig; but it was a standing joke between the lad and Uncle Paul that King Dagobert had not sighted the sea-serpent as yet.
“And it’s my belief, Pickle, that they are going the wrong way to work.”
“Why, what would you do, then, uncle?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, my boy. He’s a very shy bird, and if he knows you are looking for him he won’t show. If you and I take up the search I tell you what we’ll do; we won’t look for him; we’ll let him look for us.”
“According to that, then, uncle, we are more likely to find him than they are.”
“Of course, my boy. Why, haven’t we proved it?”
They were down in the laboratory, where Joe Cross had been helping them over the bottling, but he had gone up on deck, the day’s task being over, and the skipper now came down, looked and snorted at the fresh regiment of bottles, and made some remark about the doctor seeming out of spirits. But he did not mean it for a joke. Captain Chubb never did joke, for he was one of those men who pass their lives looking out for squalls, and his allusion was to the emptiness of the doctor’s set of kegs.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the doctor. “Sit down and let’s talk. I have got quite as many preparations in spirits as will last me for years. By the way, did you think any more about Trinidad?”
“Deal,” said the skipper shortly, and he gave the fixed table a rap with a roll of paper which he had brought down tucked under his arm. “Here’s the chart.”
“Well?” said the doctor, wincing, as the skipper unrolled the map on the dresser-like table, and catching up first one specimen bottle and then another used them as paper-weights to keep the chart flat, while he began to operate with his big rough, brown, index finger.
“Here y’are,” he said, “and its character written about it: currents, shoals, stormy seas, all kinds of dangers. Bad landing-place; very rocky—place if you go to you ought to stop away.”
“Sounds hopeful; eh, Pickle?”
“Oh, but curious, uncle. I should like to go.”
“Well, then, you won’t,” said the skipper gruffly, “because your uncle’s too wise to tell me to risk the schooner in such a sea.”
“Humph!” grunted the doctor.
“I’ll obey your orders, sir, and sail anywhere,” continued the skipper, frowning very heavily, “but it’s my duty to tell you when you are going wrong.”
“Of course,” said the doctor, “and as you give the place such a bad character, captain, we’ll disappoint Rodd and stay away.”
“Right,” cried the skipper. Then after drawing a deep breath he looked fiercely at Rodd, and then glared at the doctor, who opened his eyes a little, wonderingly.
“Do you know where you are now?” said the skipper.
“Well, not exactly, only that we have been on ground rich in objects such as I wish to collect, and—excuse me, captain—that bottle—your elbow. I wouldn’t have an accident to that for the world.”
“Well, then,” continued the skipper, very gruffly, as he dabbed his big finger down in the middle of the chart, “you are here.”
“Saint Helena,” said Rodd, after a quick glance at the chart.
“Right,” grunted the skipper. “Now, Dr Robson, am I to speak out, or will you send young Mr Rodd here up on deck first?”
The doctor stared.
“I see no reason for sending my nephew away,” he said coldly. “He and I have the fullest confidence in one another.”
Rodd, who was standing leaning over the map, moved very slightly, but somehow his left hand stole on to his uncle’s shoulder.
“Right, then,” said the skipper harshly. “It is my duty, Dr Robson, to tell you that you are in a false position.”
“Then, Captain Chubb, as my navigator in whom I have the most perfect trust, it is my duty to tell you that you ought to be on deck sailing us out of it as soon as you can.”
“Come down here on purpose,” said the skipper shortly, “and here goes. Now then, doctor, you are such a busy man, and you are so wrapped up in your fads about natural history and that sort of thing, that anybody artful could take you in and cheat you as easy as swallowing a gooseberry.”
“Well, you have a nice opinion of me, Captain Chubb!”
“I have, sir—a splendid opinion of you,” cried the skipper, “and I’d say it before all the judges in the land—I mean at home—that there was never a more straightforward gentleman made than you. I’d do anything for you.”
“Hear, hear! Bravo, Captain Chubb!” cried Rodd. “What about me?”
“You, youngster? Well, you aren’t half a bad ’un as boys go. But look here, doctor; time’s come for me to speak out. You are a bit too innocent.”
“Am I? Well, captain, that’s better than being a bit too guilty; eh, Rodd?”
“A deal, uncle. But what’s the matter, captain?”
“Why, this here, my lad. I can’t stand still no longer and see your uncle being made a cat’s-paw of.”
“Cat’s-paw, eh, captain?” said the doctor. “Let’s see, that means to fetch the roasted chestnuts out of the fire. This must apply to you, Master Rodd.”
“To me, uncle?” cried the boy, aghast.
“Yes; I don’t know anybody else whom Captain Chubb looks upon as a monkey.”
“Nay–y–y! I mean that there French Count.”
“Stop!” cried the doctor sternly. “Mind what you are saying, Captain Chubb. Count Des Saix is my friend—a gentleman, a nobleman.”
“I dessay he may be at home,” said the skipper, meeting Rodd’s indignant eyes, “but he aren’t a gentleman, or he wouldn’t be making such a tool of you. Now, don’t you put yourself in a fury, doctor, or you’ll be saying words you’ll be sorry for arter. A gentleman like you as thinks, and is scientific too, has no business to go in a passion. That’s all very well for a skipper as has got to manage a lot of awkward sailor chaps; if he didn’t use words sometimes there’d be no getting a ship along. But you have got to take it cool like a Ann Eliza, and hear it right through, and then set yourself down and judge according.”
“But look here, Captain Chubb,” said the doctor angrily, “I cannot be silent and let you malign my friend.”
“He aren’t your friend, sir; he’s only a Frenchman, and though I’ve done my duty by him right through, I allers felt as if I couldn’t trust him.”
“Why not?” said the doctor hotly.
“Because he being a natural born enemy of an Englishman, it didn’t seem right that he should pretend to be such a friend of yourn.”
“Why not, sir?” cried the doctor warmly.
“Now, none of that, doctor. I did warn you about not getting put out. Don’t you call me, sir, ’cause I don’t like it.”
“Look here, Captain Chubb,” cried the doctor, “I am sure you mean well.”
“Thankye, sir; I do.”
“Then why have you taken this prejudice against the Count?”
“That’s a straight question, sir. Now let me ask you one. What’s he doing here?”
“Upon some kind of research.”
“Not him, sir! That’s what he’s told you, and it aren’t honest. He’s carrying on a game of his own behind you; and the boy’s as bad as the old man.”
“How dare you!” flashed out Rodd.
“Silence, Rodney!”
“I can’t be silent, uncle. I won’t stand here and listen to such an outrageous charge against those two gentlemen. I don’t know what has come to Captain Chubb, but he ought to be made to apologise before he leaves this place.”
“Well, he aren’t going to be made to, young pepper-caster,” growled the captain. “Honest men don’t apologise for telling the truth, even if it don’t taste nice.”
“Look here, Chubb,” said the doctor, “we are having too many words. Let’s have a clear understanding about what you think.”
“Right, sir. Let’s get to the bottom of it at once. You want an explanation. It’s this now. I have been very suspicious from the first. What about this ’ere Count and his son? First you knowed of ’em was as they was prisoners at Dartmoor. Well, it sounds bad for a man to be a prisoner, but as he was took in war that don’t count for much, so we’ll let that go. Next thing is, you runs agen ’em at Havre, cutting their cable and running for it when Government gives orders for them to stop. Next thing is, they boards our schooner like a set of pirates, only we seem too many for them; and then they cackles up a cock-and-bull story about wanting help, when they see they couldn’t seize the schooner.”
“Look here, Captain Chubb—” began the doctor.
“Give me my chance, sir, and let me finish, and then have your say. Help they had, and plenty on it, and I will say that a nicer, more gentlemanly-tongued chap than the Count I never met, nor had to do with a pleasanter nor nicer young fellow than his son.”
“Thank you,” said Rodd sarcastically.
“Now, don’t you sneer, youngster,” growled the captain, “for it aren’t clever, nor it aren’t nice. Well, now, doctor, we all went through a deal all along of these Frenchies, for I don’t see how it could have happened if it hadn’t been for them.”
“Why, you took us up the river, captain,” cried Rodd indignantly.
“That’s true, sir, but it was to do the best for their leaky brig, and I made her as good a craft as ever she was; so you needn’t chuck that in my teeth.”
“Be silent, Rodney, and let the captain speak.”
Rodd gave himself a snatch and clenched his fists.
“Well, sir, to make a long story short, the Count gammoned you into keeping company with him, and brought you here—here, of all places in the world—here, to Saint Helena,” and he thumped the chart just where the island was marked.
“Yes,” said the doctor thoughtfully—“here, to the neighbourhood of Saint Helena; upon a scientific research.”
“Scientific research!” growled the skipper scornfully. “Look here, sir, don’t you be so innocent. You make me wild. What’s this ’ere Count? A Frenchman, aren’t he?”
“Well, plenty of clever Frenchmen have followed science,” said the doctor indignantly.
“Chinese too, sir, though they can’t dress like Christians,” cried the skipper. “But just you tell me this ’ere, sir; who lives at Saint Helena? Don’t old Bony? Him as we shut up like the warlike lunatic he is, to keep him out of mischief?”
“Well, yes,” said the doctor, much more suavely; “there is something in that.”
“I should think there is, sir! Haven’t I heard you carry on dozens of times about what a bad ’un he’s been to the whole world?”
“Yes, yes, Chubb; I certainly do entertain strong feelings against that tyrant and usurper.”
“You do, sir. I’ve heard you say things at times as have sounded red-hot.”
“And I’m not ashamed of them, Captain Chubb,” cried the doctor warmly.
“’Shamed on ’em! Not you, sir! They’re a honour to you as an English gentleman. Not much of the innocent in you about that.”
“Thank you, Captain Chubb; thank you,” said the doctor.
“Oh, uncle!” cried Rodd, between his teeth.
“You let your uncle alone, youngster; I aren’t done with him yet. Now then, doctor, your eyes aren’t quite open now, but you are beginning to peep. Now, just have the goodness to tell me what you are a-doing here at Saint Helena—a place that a gentleman with your sentiments ought to have kept clear of like pison.”
“Well,” cried the doctor, warming up again, “you know I have accompanied my friend the Count upon his scientific expedition.”
“Your friend the Count, sir! His scientific expedition!” snarled the skipper. “Do you call old Bony a scientific expedition?”
“I don’t understand you, captain.”
“Then here you have it, sir, plain. Your friend the Count is a Bony party, and as the French Government knew what game he was on and tried to stop him from running out of Havre, when he come upon us and found out what we were doing, ‘Here’s my man,’ he says; ‘I will just creep under his cloak and carry on my little game to carry off Bony. No one will suspect me if I am in good company, and on what he calls scientific research.’ Consekens, here’s you, sir, off the island of Saint Helena in co and company with this ’ere Bony party come to carry off and set free the man of all others you hate most in the world. Now you understand what you have come to do.”
“I’ll be hanged if I have!” cried the doctor, bringing his fist down with a tremendous thump upon the table, making one of the bottles leap up, fall over upon its side, and discharge its stopper at Rodd, who fielded it cleverly, though the contents—gelatinous infusoria and spirit of wine—were scattered all over the map.
“That’s spoke like you, sir,” cried the skipper; “but you needn’t have spoiled my chart.”
“Confound your chart, man! Here, Rodney, you hear all this? Do you think it’s true?”
“No, uncle, I can’t.”
“Neither can I, sir. I cannot. I will not. You, Captain Chubb, you mean well, I know, but— Oh, it’s outrageous! That I, Paul Robson, a man of my sentiments, should come to do such a disloyal thing as this—this—this—this treachery against my country and my King! Here, Captain Chubb, are you mad, or—”
“Drunk, sir? Say it out. I don’t mind. It does me good to see you come to your senses like this. Brayvo, sir! That’s the way to take it.”
“Oh, uncle!” panted Rodd.
“You let him alone, sir. He’s all right,” cried the skipper. “I’ve stuck the harpoon into him. You give him line, and you’ll see we shall have him in his flurry directly.”
“Stop, man! Where are your proofs?”
“Yes,” cried Rodd, stamping excitedly about the cabin; “where are your proofs?”
“Proofs?” said the skipper. “I d’know. Yes, I do. You ask the Count to his face, and his boy with him, whether what I say aren’t true.”
“Yes,” cried the doctor. “Go on deck, and take that confounded speaking trumpet of yours. Hail the brig, and ask the Count to come on board.”
“Yes—with his son!” stormed Rodd. “How can I? They went off this afternoon on some game or another, and haven’t been in sight since.”
“Hah!” said the doctor, fanning himself with one hand, wiping his face with the other, and then shaking his bandanna silk handkerchief up and down to try and get cool. “There, I am not going to be in a passion, Rodney. I am not going to say angry words to you, Chubb, for you believe all this, while I—I—I can’t believe it. The Count is too grand a gentleman to have made a—a—what you said, of me. But I will have this matter cleared up, and you will have to apologise to me and the Count.”
“And to Viscount Morny des Saix,” cried Rodd.
“Yes, my boy; exactly,” said the doctor; and then to the skipper—“If you are wrong!”
Saying this, he literally stamped out of the cabin.
“Where are you going, uncle?” cried Rodd, following.
“Up on deck, my boy,” cried the doctor, without turning his head. “I feel like a furnace, and if I speak any more words they’ll be like the skipper said—red-hot.”
“Well,” said the captain, as he stood staring towards the cabin stairs, “I never see’d the doctor with his monkey up like that afore. Anyhow, he aren’t afraid to trust me with his bag of tricks down here, and bottles of mixture. But he needn’t have spoiled my chart!”
Chapter Fifty One.
That’s Saint Helena.
Night, and no sign of the brig. Morning, and the doctor and his nephew both on deck, with a sail in sight upon the distant horizon, while just beyond it, looming up, was what seemed to be a dark cloud.
“There she is!” cried the doctor, glass in hand. “We will soon know the truth now, Rodd.”
“That, sir?” said a voice close behind them. “That’s Saint Helena.”
The doctor started round as though he had been stung, to stare fiercely in the frank face of Joe Cross, who looked rather thin and hollow-cheeked, but had declared himself well enough to take the morning watch.
“It is, sir,” said the man, who took the doctor’s angry stare for a look of doubt. “That’s right enough, though it don’t look like an island. It’s the big rock where they’ve got Bony shut up.”
“Bah!” snapped the doctor, and he turned on his heel and walked away.
“Turned out of his bunk wrong side up’ards, sir?” asked the man, with a smile.
“Pah!” ejaculated Rodd, and he stamped off in the other direction.
“Old ’un’s been giving it to him, I suppose,” said Joe to himself. “Oh, I know; he’d been upsetting that bottle of fish soup as the skipper fetched me down to swab up last night—that as went all over the skipper’s chart. Pore young chap! I’ll go and smooth him down.”
“What do you want?” cried Rodd angrily.
“Oh, nothing, sir. I only wanted to say I’m sorry I put your uncle out about the island. I’m a bit deaf in one ear since I got hurt over that fight, and I mis-underconstumbled him. He said, ‘There she is,’ and I thought he was talking about Bony’s island, and he meant the brig.”
“Well, suppose he did? There she is.”
“Nay, sir; you take another look. That’s a three-master, sir. Don’t you see?”
“Oh yes, I see now, Joe,” said Rodd, who was rather ashamed of his petulance to the man. “She was end on to us, and I didn’t see the mizzen. Why, she’s in full sail!”
“Yes, sir, a regular crowd of canvas, topgallants and stunsles all up, and if I haven’t forgotten all about a man-of-war, that’s what she is, as we used to say, by the cut of her jib, which is a very sensible remark, sir, as from here her jib’s quite out of sight.”
The doctor kept on deck till breakfast-time, sweeping the horizon with his glass, while the skipper walked up and down with his long mahogany-covered glass tucked under his left arm, and his hands very deep down in his pockets, while his shoulders were hitched up to his ears.
Then breakfast, with everything hot except the conduct of the occupants of the cabin. This was almost icy, and hardly a word was spoken.
Up on deck again, with the schooner careening over to the pleasant breeze, but no sign of the brig; but the three-masted vessel was overhauling them fast, and before long a gun said, Heave to, in the very emphatic monosyllable so well understood in the Royal Navy.
The skipper gave a glance at Uncle Paul with one eye, and that morning it seemed if as he had been suddenly afflicted with a cast, for the other eye turned outward and looked at Rodd.
Then he gave the order to the man at the wheel, who with a few turns of the spokes ran the swift little vessel well up into the wind, her sails began to flap, and she quietly settled down into a gentle rock upon the beautifully rippled heaving sea. Then time went on, with the man-of-war bearing down upon them rapidly, while the doctor stood scowling angrily at the rock which had so much to do with the fate of nations standing out more clearly in the sunlit air.
In due time a boat full of men was swung down from the davits of the cruiser, the oars dipped, and she came skimming along with a steady pull, and every stroke pulled clean and with hardly a splash, till she came alongside, when, to the delight of Rodd, there in the stern-sheets were the same officer and middy who had overhauled them off the African coast.
Rodd was all eagerness, and advanced ready to grasp hands with the reefer, but to his great surprise everything was coldly stern and formal. Two marines followed the officers on board, and the skipper, doctor, and Rodd were ordered down into the boat as prisoners, while a prize crew under the command of the middy, who looked more important than he did upon his first visit to the schooner, and stared at Rodd as if he had never seen him before, was left on board.
Uncle Paul spoke to the lieutenant, but his words were received almost in silence, while no explanation being forthcoming, he sat still and frowned.
The sloop of war, their old friend, was soon reached, and the prisoners were marched up to the quarter-deck where the captain stood waiting for them, scanning them sternly before beginning to question the skipper as to the name of the schooner and their object in those waters.
Questions were answered and explanations given in Captain Chubb’s most blunt and straightforward way, before the captain turned his searching eyes upon Uncle Paul.
“Then you are Dr Robson, sir?” he said.
“Yes. May I ask—”
“You are here carrying out a scientific research?”
“Yes.”
“In company with your consort, Count Des Saix, of the French brig Dagobert?”
“That’s quite right, sir; but may I ask—”
“Why you are my prisoners? Certainly. But I will shorten matters by telling you that your scientific research was a plot to carry off the prisoner of the British Government, the ex-emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“No, sir, I’ll be hanged if it was!” cried the doctor.
“Which plot has completely failed,” added the captain. “As I have said, sir, you are my prisoner.”
“And what about Captain Chubb, here, and my nephew?”
“They are prisoners too, of course.”
“But my schooner—my pleasure yacht?” said the doctor.
The captain slightly shrugged his shoulders, as he smiled—
“That will be well taken care of, sir, you may depend.”
“Ah, Rodd, my boy,” said the doctor, shortly afterwards, “you are getting plenty of adventures; but you needn’t be uncomfortable. This will all be cleared up. Well, Chubb, I am afraid you were right; at any rate the King’s officer seems to be quite of your opinion.”
“Yes, sir, but wait a bit,” said the captain. “I suppose they’ll get us close in, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if we find, when we get to the other side of the island, that they’ve got the brig snug in shelter there.”
“What, captured too?” cried Rodd excitedly.
“Yes, sir. This sloop of war is kept here to cruise about the island and keep strangers off. That’s what she’s for.”
Chapter Fifty Two.
I have sinned—Forgive.
That same afternoon the sloop of war was lying close inshore, with the brig and schooner near at hand, when a barge put off from the landing-place bearing the Governor and other officials, who were received at the gangway of the sloop with the customary salute, and shortly afterwards a little informal court was held, with the prisoners present, while the First Lieutenant of the sloop gave evidence to the effect that just after dark he had observed, from the anchorage where the sloop lay, a light, evidently intended for a signal, exhibited in a peculiar way from the masthead of some vessel.
He had noticed the brig now lying at anchor some distance in the offing early in the evening, but an adverse wind had prevented the sloop from going out. This light appeared at intervals during the next two hours, and on reporting the matter to the captain it was considered sufficiently suspicious for the brig from which it evidently came to be overhauled. This was done during the night; the prisoners brought in; and they were here to give an account of themselves.
Upon being asked if there was any difficulty in overhauling and seizing the brig, which appeared to be well manned and armed, the lieutenant smiled and said no, for the simple ruse of answering the brig’s signal by the exhibition of lights in a similar way brought her close inshore, and then in the darkness the rest was easy, for it fell perfectly calm, and the sudden advance in the darkness of three well-armed boats made resistance vain.
“They offered no resistance, then?” asked the Governor.
“Oh yes,” was the reply; “a very brave resistance; but they were overpowered by numbers and brought in.”
As this evidence was given the Count and his son stood together, the former looking calm and dignified, the latter defiant, and when asked what defence he had to make for his clandestine approach to a place where it must have been well-known to him landing could be only allowed by the special permission of the Governor, and told that it was perfectly evident his coming could have but one intent, to aid in the escape of the prisoner who had been so long in the island—the Count spoke out at once bravely and earnestly in the defence of those who were there standing as fellow-prisoners.
He wished, he said, to exonerate the English doctor and the captain of the schooner from all participation in his attempt. They had met on the high seas quite by accident, and finding how carefully the prison of his august master was watched, he had led the doctor into the belief that he too was engaged upon a scientific expedition.
Just then the eyes of the two lads met, and as Rodd darted an angry indignant look at Morny, the latter made a deprecating gesture, while he seemed to say, Be merciful; you do not know all.
The Count went on, taking the whole blame of the proceedings upon himself, and asking for mercy for his son, who had acted entirely under his orders and had been perfectly obedient, as a son should be. As he spoke these words he looked hard at Rodd, and then at his uncle, who stood frowning there.
“I failed in my enterprise,” continued the Count, “for I was growing desperate at the difficulties which surrounded me. Certain signals should have answered mine, and the lights which were shown from the direction of the shore were not exactly those which I anticipated. But, as I have said, I was growing desperate at my want of success, and in the hope that after all these signals might mean that my august master would be brought off in a fishing-boat, I risked all and allowed myself to be deluded, as it were, into what proved to be a trap. I have no more to say, gentlemen, save this, that I ask no mercy for myself. Whatever the English laws award to one who has acted as I have done, I accept. But my son, as I have said, was entirely under my orders, and as for my crew, they have only been my faithful servants, and tried to carry out my will. England must be too brave to wish to punish such as these. As to the doctor, his nephew, and the crew of the schooner, it would be absurd for England after my explanation to say more to them than ‘Go in peace.’”
There was perfect silence for a minute or so, and then the Governor, one of his staff, an officer of foot who was the commander of the military force stationed in the island, and the captain of the sloop, held a short consultation together, after which the officers drew back into their places and left the Governor to speak.
“Dr Robson,” he said, “Captain Ellison, in command of the sloop of war, has told me of his previous meeting with you at the mouth of one of the West African rivers, and the way in which your vessel was fitted out, and of the state of your papers. Everything, in fact, goes to prove the perfect truth of your story and the fact of your ignorance of the plan for the escape of the prisoner. I can offer you no apology for your being made prisoner and brought here, for I think that due consideration will prove to you that you were somewhat imprudent in your action and choice of friend. You and yours, sir, are perfectly at liberty to leave the island at once. As for you, Count Des Saix,” he continued, “as the Governor of this island I have certain duties to perform, and after such an important and daring attempt as yours, I must tell you that in spite of peculiar circumstances which I will refer to shortly, this matter cannot end here. It is an affair of diplomacy in which others are concerned as well as England. For the present you and your people must consider yourselves prisoners pending the arrival of the dispatches that I must send to the British Government. Yours, sir, was a daring and extremely hazardous plot, designed in extravagance and I may say in ignorance of the impossibility of its execution. The prisoner was too closely guarded and watched, and, as you have seen, it was quite impossible for your vessel to approach this island without being seized. I gather that you have been a naval officer in the service of the late Government of France, and I presume that it was from a feeling of devotion to the Emperor Napoleon—I should say, our prisoner here—that you and your friends devoted yourselves to this task, which has proved so signal a failure. Sir, I can only admire your act and the devotion of the followers of the late Emperor.”
“Sir, to us,” cried the Count, “your way of speaking of our august master is little better than an insult. With us there is no late Emperor; he is still the ruler of the French Empire, our august master while he lives.”
“Sir,” said the Governor, slowly and gravely, “mine is the painful duty to announce to you that my words were well chosen and correct, that your designs were as hopeless as they were vain; the late Emperor Napoleon died two nights since.”
The Count gave a violent start, gazing wildly in the Governor’s eyes, as if asking whether his words were true. Then turning to his son he took off his cap and stood in silence with his head bowed down, before saying in a low broken voice that reached no farther than the ears of Uncle Paul and Rodd—
“Morny, my son, we were faithful to the end, even though we failed. Our august master is free at last. But our country lives, and in the future there is always for us la France.”
There were several meetings between Uncle Paul, Rodd, and the prisoners—if prisoners they could be deemed, for their captivity was of the easiest kind—before the schooner set sail for England and home, and during one of these, when all seemed once more the best of friends, the doctor was heard to say—
“Yes, of course, I forgive him now, and you know, Des Saix, since that sort of a trial we had I have never said one word of reproach. I was not going to trample on a fallen man. But, you know, all that business, to use a coarse old English expression, sticks in my gizzard. It was not honourable, nor gentlemanly; I won’t add noble. I don’t think you ought to have done it to one who trusted you and helped you as I did. Now, look here; do you think it was a good example to set your son?”
“My friend,” said the Count humbly—“May I still call you my friend?”
“As long as you live, sir!” cried the doctor warmly.
“Then I say to you, No; it was dishonourable, treacherous, and vile. But my sword was devoted to the service of my dead master, my life was his, and I was ready to give all to save him from his unhappy fate. Can I say more than this: I have sinned. Forgive.”
As matters turned out it was many, many months, owing to an accident to the schooner and the delays in re-fitting at Las Palmas, and long stays made in the Mediterranean—the entrance to which could not be passed without a cruise within—before the Maid of Salcombe approached the English coast, and, oddly enough, once more Captain Chubb was driven to take refuge for a few hours at Havre-de-Grace, where one of the first things to be noticed was the familiar brig.
Inquiries followed at last, and Rodd and his uncle learned that the vessel had been lying there for some time while her captain, the Count, and his son were at Paris.
No: the officer in charge of the brig could give no information about their residence in Paris, but he had heard that they were not going to sail in the brig again, as they were about being appointed to a large ship in the King’s Navy.
“Humph, Rodd!” said the doctor. “This sounds like good news.”
“Yes, uncle, but we must try and see them again.”
“Would you like to?”
“Of course!” cried Rodd warmly. “For a good long talk about old days.”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, “they may hear of our return, and may try to see us.”
“And if they do, uncle?”
“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “they know our address.”