Bunyip Land Part 7

That's all I can recollect. That's all I'm sure that the doctor could recollect, or the captain or anybody else. We were just about drowned and stunned, and when we came to ourselves it was because the storm had pa.s.sed over.

"What cheer, ho!" shouted the captain, and we poor flogged and drenched objects sat up and looked about us, to find that the waves had lifted the schooner off the rocks, and driven her a long way out of her course; that the sails that had been set were blown to ribbons; and finally that the schooner, with the last exception, was very little the worse for the adventure.

"She ain't made no water much," said the captain, after going below; "and--here, I say, where's that Malay scoundrel?"

"Down in the cabin--locked in," said an ill-used voice; and I rubbed the salt-water out of my eyes, and stared at the tall thin figure before me, leaning up against the bulwark as if his long thin legs were too weak to support his long body, though his head was so small that it could not have added very much weight.

"Why, hallo! Who the blue jingo are you?" roared the skipper.

The tall thin boy wrinkled up his forehead, and did not answer.

"Here, I say, where did you spring from?" roared the captain.

The tall thin boy took one hand out of his trousers' pocket with some difficulty, for it was so wet that it clung, and pointed down below.

The skipper scratched his head furiously, and stared again.

"Here, can't you speak, you long-legged thing?" he cried. "Who are you?"

"Why, it's Jack Penny!" I exclaimed.

"Jack who?" cried the captain.

"Jack Penny, sir. His father is a squatter about ten miles from our place."

"Well, but how came _he_--I mean that tall thin chap, not his father--to be squatting aboard my schooner?"

"Why, Jack," I said, "when did you come aboard?"

"Come aboard?" he said slowly, as if it took him some time to understand what I said. "Oh, the night before you did."

"But where have you been all the time?"

"Oh, down below there," said Jack slowly.

"But what did you come for?"

"Wanted to," he said coolly. "If I had said so, they wouldn't--you wouldn't have let me come."

"But why did you come, Jack?" I said.

"'Cause I wanted," he replied surlily. "Who are you that you're to have all the fun and me get none!"

"Fun!" I said.

"Yes, fun. Ain't you goin' to find your father?"

"Of course I am; but what's that got to do with fun?"

"Never you mind; I've come, and that's all about it," he said slowly; and thrusting his hands back into his trousers' pockets as fast as the wet clinging stuff would let him, he began to whistle.

"But it arn't all about it," cried the captain; "and so you'll find.

You arn't paid no pa.s.sage, and I arn't going to have no liberties took with my s.h.i.+p. Here, where's that Malay chap?"

"I told you where he was, didn't I?" snarled Jack Penny. "Are you deaf?

In the cabin, locked in."

"What's he doing locked in my cabin?" roared the captain. "I say, are you skipper here, or am I? What's he doing in my cabin locked in?"

"Rubbing his sore head, I s'pose," drawled Jack Penny. "I hit him as hard as I could with one o' them fence rails."

"Fence rails!" cried the captain, who looked astounded at the big thin boy's coolness, and then glanced in the direction he pointed beneath the bulwarks. "Fence rails! What do you mean--one of them capstan bars?"

"I don't know what you call 'em," said Jack. "I give him a regular wunner on the head."

"What for, you dog?"

"Here, don't you call me a dog or there'll be a row," cried Jack, rising erect and standing rather shakily about five feet eleven, looking like a big boy stretched to the bursting point and then made fast. "He was going to kill the black fellow with his knife after knocking him down.

I wasn't going to stand by and see him do that, was I?"

"Well, I s'pose not," said the captain, who looked puzzled. "Where is the black fellow? Here, where's Jimmy?"

"Down that square hole there, that wooden well-place," said Jack, pointing to the forecastle hatch. "He slipped down there when the yaller chap hit him."

"Look here--" said the captain as I made for the hatch to look after Jimmy. "But stop a minute, let's have the black up."

Two of the men went below and dragged up poor Jimmy, who was quite stunned, and bleeding freely from a wound on the head.

"Well, that's some proof of what you say, my fine fellow," continued the captain, as the doctor knelt down to examine poor Jimmy's head and I fetched some water to bathe his face. "What did you do next?"

"Next? Let me see," drawled Jack Penny; "what did I do next? Oh! I know. That chap was running away with the s.h.i.+p, and I took hold of that wheel thing and turned her round, so as to come back to you when you kept waving your cap."

"Hah! yes. Well, what then?"

"Oh, the thing wanted oiling or greasing; it wouldn't go properly. It got stuck fast, and the s.h.i.+p wouldn't move; and then the storm came. I wish you wouldn't bother so."

"Well, I _am_ blessed," cried the captain staring. "I should have been proud to have been your father, my young hopeful. 'Pon my soul I should. You are a cool one, you are. You go and run the prettiest little schooner there is along the coast upon the rocks, and then you have the confounded impudence to look me in the face and tell me the rudder wants greasing and it stuck."

"So it did!" cried Jack Penny indignantly. "Think I don't know? I heard it squeak. You weren't on board. The s.h.i.+p wouldn't move afterwards."

"Here, I say; which are you?" cried the captain; "a rogue or a fool?"

"I d'know," said Jack coolly. "Father used to say I was a fool sometimes. P'r'aps I am. I say, though, if I were you I'd go and tie down that yaller Malay chap in the cabin. He's as vicious as an old man kangaroo in a water-hole."

"Your father's wrong, my fine fellow," said the captain with a grim smile; "you ar'n't a fool, for a fool couldn't give such good advice as that. Here, doctor, p'r'aps you'll lend me one of your shooting things.

You can get into your cabin; I can't get into mine."

The doctor nodded, and in the excitement of the time we forgot all about our drenched clothes as he went down and returned directly with his revolver, and another for the captain's use.