King o' the Beach Part 44

"Hullo! What's that mean?" came in a deep growl from the top of the cabin stairs.

"Ahoy there!" roared Mallam. "Where's that there doctor?"

"You ought to know," shouted Bostock, every word in the silence of the gathering night sounding plainly on the listeners' ears. "Down below, with your shot in his limb."

"Curse his limb!" roared Mallam.

"Look ye here," said Bostock, in hoa.r.s.e, stentorian tones, "I've got a double gun, double-loaded, in my fins, and I'm pynting down straight at you, my old beachcomber; and I tell you what it is, if you begin any of your games again I looses off both barrels and ends you. D'yer hear?"

"Yes, I hear, cooky. I won't fire any more. You must bring that doctor down to see to me. I'm wrecked."

"What's the matter with you?" growled Bostock; "too drunk to move?"

"No-o-o-o!" roared the beachcomber. "I fell down these cursed stairs and broke both my legs."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Bostock, coolly. "I was wondering what was the matter. Well, it'll keep you quiet for a bit."

"You send down the doctor, I tell you."

"He can't come, and if he could he wouldn't. I'll send some of your black fellows to come if you give up your pistols and gun."

"What!" roared Mallam. "I'm king here, and--here, you tell the doctor to come to me directly."

"Shan't," growled Bostock.

"Big Dan brok.u.m," whispered Black Jack.u.m.

"Yes," said Carey, "both legs."

"Black Jack.u.m go and men'. No. Big Dan shoot um."

At that moment there was the sound of joyous shouting from the island, and the ruddy glare of a big fire played through the saloon window.

"Boy big eat corroborree," said the black, sadly. "Jack go eat snake?

No. Big Dan not shoot, Jack.u.m 'top men' both leggum."

"Ahoy, there!" roared Mallam, from the bottom of the stairs, "if that doctor aren't down here 'fore I count five hundred I'll fire down into the powder store and blow up the s.h.i.+p."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

"Master Carey, sir!" came through the broken skylight. "Hear that?

Hadn't we better begin first?"

"Wait a minute," replied Carey, who was trembling with excitement, brought on by the responsibilities of his new position. "Let me speak to Doctor Kingsmead."

Bostock grunted, and the boy turned to the wounded man.

"Did you hear what this wretch said?" he asked.

The doctor pressed the hand which took his, but made no reply in his utter exhaustion, and Carey drew back uttering a sigh, as much from pain as anxiety.

"It's no use," he muttered, "there's no help for it. I've got to do it all."

"Big Dan go mumkull ebberybody?" asked Jack.u.m, quietly, and as if it was all a matter of course.

"No, no," cried Carey, angrily. "I'd soon kill him."

"Ha!" cried the black out of the darkness, for it was night now, with the black's figure just visible in the flames from the sh.o.r.e. "No kill Jack.u.m?"

"Not I," cried Carey. "Here, let me come by."

He thrust the black aside, and went under the broken light.

"Look here, Bob," he cried. "Can that old wretch blow up the s.h.i.+p?"

"Well, sir, that's what I've been thinking. It's all very well to say you'll do a thing, but it aren't always easy, you see."

"But is the powder magazine close by where he's lying?"

"That's what I want to know, sir?"

"Don't you know?"

"No, sir; and that sets me a-thinking, how can he know?"

"But you've belonged to the s.h.i.+p for years."

"Ay, sir, I jyned for the first v'y'ge."

"And you've seen her loaded."

"That's so, sir."

"And you don't know where the powder magazine is?"

"Well, sir, to speak quite fair and honest, I don't."

"Isn't that strange?"

"Sounds so, sir, but 'tween you and me I don't b'lieve there is any powder magazine. The old _Soosan_ aren't a man-o'-war."

"No, of course not."

"She aren't got no great guns like we had aboard the _Conkhooroar_.

What do we want with a powder magazine?"