The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 87

"Go on firing, and sink her," cried Rodd. "Look at the other one," and he pointed to the three-master, whose decks looked as if they were awash.

"Well, sir, that's what we have been trying to do; but she won't sink.

How so be, here goes, my lad, for another try, and--What's the meaning of that?"

For all at once through the smoke that rose from the schooner they could see that something fresh had taken place--what, they could not make out, but it was something important, and one of the enemy's smaller guns was fired in the other direction.

"Why, there must be help coming from down the river," cried the doctor excitedly. "Yes, hark at that!"

For in reply to the schooner's gun a desultory series of musket shots began to ring out, and encouraged by this and the knowledge that help must be at hand, the little English crew sent forth a cheer, dragged the long gun more and more round, and sent one of the most successful shots they had fired crash into the enemy's stern.

To the astonishment of all, the firing on board the enemy ceased; another sail was run up, and as it filled the schooner swung round upon another tack and began to sail steadily down the river, clearing the way for those on board the English vessel to see a couple of well-manned boats being rowed steadily up-stream, with men in the stern-sheets keeping up a musketry fire.

"Quick!" shouted Moray. "Another shot! Friends! Friends!"

"Yes, sir," said Joe quietly, "but I don't see how it's to be done.

Yes, we might do it from a little gun;" and he ran with a part of the crew to try and slew her round.

"No good, gentlemen," he said. "By the time we can get a shot off we shall risk hitting those boats, whatever they are, and they are coming to our help. Here, hasn't anybody got a gla.s.s?"

"No," cried Rodd; "it was left in the boat."

"Well, there's one in the cabin. Here, one of you run down."

"No, no," cried Morny excitedly; "they're our boats. Look! That's my father in one," he cried hysterically.

"And if that aren't our old man in the other my name aren't Joe Cross!"

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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 cutla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 seamans.h.i.+p 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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 hoa.r.s.e, 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.