Hunting the Skipper Part 31

"And did you find anything, Tom?" asked Roberts.

"Find anything, sir!" replied the man. "I should just think we did! I mean, the lads did, sir; I warn't going to mess myself up with the bloodthirsty varmint."

"Of course not," said Murray mischievously; "but what did they find?

Anything bad?--Physic bottle, for instance? Bother! What are you doing, Roberts?" For his companion gave him a savage dig in the dark with his elbow. "Oh, nothing!"

"Physic bottle, sir?" continued the sailor wonderingly. "Not as I know on. More likely to ha' been an empty rum bottle. Wouldn't ha' been a full un," added the man, chuckling. "But I tell you what they did find, sir, and that was 'bout half-a-dozen o' them round bra.s.s wire rings as the black women wears on their arms and legs."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roberts, with a shudder. "How horrible!"

"Yes, sir; that seemed to tell tales like. Looked as if Jack had ketched some poor black women swimming at the mouth o' one of the rivers as runs down into the sea."

"Possibly," said Murray.

"Yes, sir; that's it. I did hear once of a shark being caught with a jack knife inside him. It warn't no good, being all rusted up; but a jack knife it was, all the same, with a loop at the end o' the haft where some poor chap had got it hung round him by a lanyard--some poor lad who had fell overboard, and the shark had been waiting for him. You see, sir, such things as bra.s.s rings and jack knives wouldn't 'gest like, as the doctor calls it."

"No; suppose not," said Murray, who added, after drawing back a little out of the reach of Roberts's elbow, "and a bottle of physic would not digest either."

"Not it, sir," replied the man, "onless it got broken, or the cork come out."

"Er-r-r!" growled Roberts, in quite a menacing tone.

"He wouldn't like it, o' course, sir," said the man, speaking as if he were playing into the mids.h.i.+pman's hand and chuckling the while.

"Doctors' stuff arn't pleasant to take for human sailors, and I don't s'pose it would 'gree with sharks. I've been thinking, though, that I should like to shy a bottle o' rum overboard, corked up, say, with a bit o' the cook's duff. That would 'gest, and then he'd get the rum. Think it would kill him, sir?"

"No, I don't," said Murray. "Ask Mr Roberts what he thinks. He's very clever over such things as that; eh, Roberts?"

"Oh, stuff!" cried the middy. "Nonsense!"

"You might tell him what you think, though," said Murray. "You know how fond you are of making experiments."

"Do talk sense," cried the lad petulantly. "Look here, May, I think it would be a great waste of useful stores to do such a thing."

"Yes, sir; so do I," said the man; "and that's talking sense, and no mistake. Beg pardon, gentlemen, but what do you think of the skipper's ideas?"

"What about?" asked Murray sharply. "We don't canva.s.s what our officers plan to do."

"Don't know about canva.s.sing them, sir," said the man, "but I meant no harm, only we've been talking it over a deal in the forc'sle, and we should like to know whether the captain means to give up trying after the slave skipper."

"No, certainly not."

"That's right, sir," said the man eagerly. "Glad on it. But it's got about that we was sailing away from the coast here, which is such a likely spot for dropping upon him."

"Well, I don't mind answering you about that, Tom. Mind, I don't want my name to be given as an authority, but I believe that Captain Kingsberry means to cross to the western sh.o.r.es and search every likely port for that schooner, and what is more, to search until he finds where she is."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the sailor. "If the skipper has said that, sir, he has spoken out like a man. Hooroar! We shall do it, then, at last.

But I dunno, though, sir," added the man thoughtfully.

"Don't know what?" asked Murray.

"Oh, nothing, sir."

"Bother! Don't talk like that," cried Murray. "Nothing is more aggravating than beginning to say something and then chopping it off in that way. Speak out and say what you mean."

"'Tain't no good, sir," said the man sulkily.

"No good?"

"No, sir. Why, if I was to say what I'd got inside my head you'd either begin to bullyrag me--"

"Nonsense, May! I'm sure I never do."

"Well, then, sir, call me a hidjit, and say it was all sooperst.i.tion."

"Well, that's likely enough," said Murray. "You sailors are full of old women's tales."

"Mebbe, sir," said the man, shaking his head slowly; "but old women is old, and the elders do grow wise."

"Sometimes, Tom," said Murray, laughing, "and a wise old woman is worth listening to; but you can't say that for a man who talks like a foolish old woman and believes in all kinds of superst.i.tious nonsense."

"No, sir: of course not, sir," said the man solemnly; "but there is things, you know."

"Oh yes, I do know that, Tom--such as setting sail with a black cat on board."

"Oh, well, sir, come!" protested the sailor warmly. "You can't say as a man's a hidjit for believing that. Something always happens if you do that."

"I could say so, Tom," replied the middy, "but I'm not going to."

"Well, sir, begging your pardon as gentleman, I'm werry sorry for it; but there, you're very young."

"Go on, Tom."

"That's all, sir. I warn't going to say no more."

"But you are thinking a deal more. That was as good as saying that I'm very young and don't know any better."

"Oh, I didn't go so far as to think that, sir, because you're a hofficer and a gentleman, and a scholar who has larnt more things than I ever heerd of; but still, sir, I dessay you won't mind owning as a fellow as has been at sea from fourteen to four-and-thirty has picked up things such as you couldn't larn at school."

"Black cats, for instance, Tom?"

"Yes, sir. Ah, you may laugh to yourself, but there's more than you think of about a black cat."

"A black skin, for instance, Tom, and if the poor brute was killed and skinned he'd look exactly like a white cat or a tortoise-sh.e.l.l."

"Oh, that's his skin, sir; it's his nature."

"Pooh! What can there be in a black cat's nature?"