O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas Part 4

"But the monkeys all seemed to like you, Nie; they would tease each other, and fight each other, but they never touched you. There was one animal in particular, and he was your favourite, the queerest old chap you ever saw. We got him down in Madagascar, and they called him the Ay-ay. Doctor always said he was a being from another world, a kind of a spirit, and the men used to be afraid of him. He had hands like a human being, but the middle finger was much longer than the others, and not thicker than a straw. When only a baby, he used to dip this long skinny finger in milk and give you to suck, and when you went to sleep he never left your side. Sometimes he would stroke your face and say, 'Ay-ay' as tenderly as if he'd been a mother to you. But the men always declared it was 'Nie, Nie,' he'd be saying.

"But you had one pet on board that maybe you mind on--the Albatross?"

"I do," said I, "young as I must have been at the time."

"People say," the captain went on, "they've never been tamed; but there he was, sure enough, in an immense great hencoop, that the doctor had made for him, and there you'd be in front of him often enough, though he would have cut the nose of anyone but yourself; and never a flying-fish was caught you didn't get hold of, and take to him. The men got small share of these. But, bless you, Nie, you were the s.h.i.+p's chief pet, and the men would have gone through fire and water for you any hour of the day or night.

"The jealousies there used to be about you, too, Nie! Why, lad, if it had been a young lady it couldn't have been worse. Jealousies, Nie, ay, and more than jealousies, for our fellows didn't need much to make them strip to the waist and fight. Fact is, when times were dull with us, I think they rather liked the excuse. I've heard a row got up for'ard just in the following fas.h.i.+on:

"You would be playing on Davis's knee.

"'Give us half an hour o' the wee chap,' Bill would say.

"'Go along,' Davis would reply, 'you 'ad him all day yesterday.'

"'He's smilin' to me,' Bill would say.

"'Smilin' _at_ you, you mean,' Davis would answer derisively.

"'Smilin' at your ugly face. Why, that mouth o' yours couldn't be made any bigger 'athout s.h.i.+fting your ears back.'

"This would be enough.

"'Come below,' Bill would cry, 'and I'll see if a big ugly lubber like you is to cheek me!'

"'Go with him, Davis!' half a dozen would cry. '_I'll_ hold the youngster!'

"And there would be such a scramble to get you, that I used to wonder you weren't torn to pieces. And all the while that animal with the long skinny middle finger would be jumping around like a demon and crying--

"'Ay-ay!--Ay-ay!--Ay-ay!'

"As he never cried like this without all the monkeys following suit, and all the parrots whistling and shrieking--on occasions like these, Nie, there was five minutes of a rough s.h.i.+p, I can tell you."

Note 1. Medical comforts are luxuries for the sick, bought at the surgeon's discretion out of the sick-mess fund.

CHAPTER FOUR.

"Still onward, fair the breeze nor rough the surge, The blue waves sport around the stern they urge; Far on the horizon's verge appears a speck, A spot--a mast--a sail--an armed deck."

Byron.

"Well, Ben," I said, "life must have been very pleasant to me then."

"And isn't it now, Nie? isn't it now, lad? Look at the beautiful old place that you have around you--all your own; you ought to be thankful.

Listen to the birds on this delightful morning, their songs mingling with the cry o' the wind through the poplars. And, lad, you cannot draw a breath out on the lawn here, without inhaling the odour of honey, and the perfume of flowers."

"You are quite poetic, Ben Roberts," I replied.

"Quite enough to make the barnacliest old tar that ever lived feel poetic, Nie," quoth Ben.

"Well, fill your pipe again, Ben."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the old man, "fill my pipe again, eh? That means heave round with another yarn, eh?"

"Something very like it," I said.

"Well," said the captain, "an old man is to be forgiven if he does get a little bit gossiping now and then, and wanders from his subject, and I always was fond of a bit o' pretty scenery, Nie--pretty bits like the old mill by the riverside down yonder."

"And a bit of fis.h.i.+ng and shooting, Ben?"

"Ay, lad. But memory is at this moment taking me back to one of the loveliest bits o' woodland landscape in the world. What a poem our Robbie Burns could have written there! You were still the _Niobe's_ pet, but old enough now to be left at times without your sea-dad. Away miles and miles into the wooded interior of Africa, we were a good long distance south the Line, and just sitting down, me and my mates, to a snack o' lunch on the banks of a roaring tumbling brook, where we'd been bathing. We'd had a smartish week's shooting, and were thinking of returning to the s.h.i.+p the very next day.

"Our guns were lying carelessly enough at some little distance, when suddenly a branch snapped, and before any of us could have stood up to defend ourselves, had it been an unfriendly Arab, or a savage Somali, a dark skin pushed the branches aside and stood before us.

"It was our faithful Sweeba, the negro who had brought us the news of Zareppa's intended attack on the night your poor father was killed, Nie.

"'Sweeba, what on earth brings you here?' says I.

"'Commander's orders,' said Sweeba, saluting.

"Now Sweeba was always dressed when on board like a British sailor, but here he was almost as naked as the stem of a palm-tree.

"'What have you done with your clothes, Sweeba?' I asked.

"'I expect he has p.a.w.ned them,' said little Brown, our purser's clerk.

"'I not can run muchee wid English clothes,' Sweeba said modestly.

"'And so you hid them in the bush, eh?'

"'Ah! Ma.s.sa Roberts,' replied the negro, smiling; 'you berry much clebber.'

"'Well, and what are the commander's orders?'

"'You come back plenty much quick.'

"'s.h.i.+p on fire?'

"'No, sah.'

"'Anything happened to Nie?'

"'No, sah. Nie and de monkey all right, sah.'

"'Well, explain.'