Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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with you, John?” inquired the captain, as the little boat shot over the smooth waters of the bay.
“Wot’s of it, sir,” replied our rugged seaman, holding up a small bundle tied in a red cotton handkerchief. “I s’pose our cruise ashore won’t be a long one.”
“It will be long for you, my man, at least as far as the schooner is concerned, for I do not mean to take you aboard again.”
“Not take me aboard agin!” exclaimed the sailor, with a look of surprise which quickly degenerated into an angry frown, and thereafter gradually relaxed into a broad grin as he continued—“why, capting, wot do you mean to do with me then, for I’m a heavy piece of goods, d’ye see, and can’t be easily moved about without a small touch o’ my own consent, you know.”
Jo Bumpus, as he was fond of styling himself, said this with a serio-comic air of sarcasm, for he was an exception to the general rule of his fellows. He had little respect for, and no fear of, his commander. Indeed, to say truth, (for truth must be told, even though the character of our rugged friend should suffer,) Jo entertained a most profound belief in the immense advantage of muscular strength and vigour in general, and of his own prowess in particular. Although not quite so gigantic a man as his captain, he was nearly so, and, being a bold self-reliant fellow, he felt persuaded in his own mind that he could thrash him, if need were. In fact, Jo was convinced that there was no living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death with more or less ease by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility, that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect—except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion for being roused was not wanting in the South Seas in those days, Jo’s amiability was frequently put to the test. He sojourned, while there, in a condition of alternate calm and storm; but riotous joviality ran, like a rich vein, through all his chequered life, and lit up its most sombre phases like gleams of light on an April day.
“You entered my service with your own consent,” replied the captain to Jo’s last remark, “and you may leave it, with the same consent, whenever you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to serve on board the schooner. Back there you do not go either with or without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to sea on your own account—you’ve got a pair of good arms and legs—you can swim! Besides,” continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured air, “you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about ‘farewell to the rolling sea,’ which leads me to think you will not object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on such a beautiful island as this is.”
“I’m your man, capting,” cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round. “And, to say wots the plain truth, d’ye see, I’m not sorry to ha done with your schooner, for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could wish for to go to sea in, I can’t say much for the crew,—saving your presence, Dick”—(he added, glancing over his shoulder at the surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar.) “Of all the rascally set I ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst. If I didn’t know you for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I’d take ye for a pirate.”
“Don’t speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo,” said the captain with a slight frown. “No good and true man ever does that.”
“No more I do,” replied John Bumpus; while a deep red colour suffused his bronzed countenance. “No more I do; leastwise if they wos here I’d say it to their faces, for they’re a set of as ill-tongued villains as I ever had the misfortune to—”
“Silence!” exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.
Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man, but John Bumpus was one of those few. He did indeed remain silent for two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.
“Capting,” said he, seriously, “I don’t mean no offence, but I’d have you to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at your bidding, d’ye see. There aint the man living as’ll make Jo Bumpus shut up w’en he’s got a mind to—”
The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him. He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and, breaking into a loud laugh, cried—“Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has made you ‘shut up’ before you had finished what you’d got to say.”
John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which he made the following observation:—
“Capting, I’ve seed, in my experience o’ life, that there are some constitootions as don’t agree with jokin’; an’ yours is one on ’em. Now, if you’d take the advice of a plain man, you’d never try it on. You’re a grave man by natur’, and you’re so bad at a joke that a feller can’t quite tell w’en you’re a-doin’ of it. See, now, I do declare I wos as near drivin’ you right over the stern o’ your own boat as could be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your eye in time.”
“Pull away, my lad,” said the captain, in the softest tones of his deep voice, at the same time looking his reprover straight in the face.
There was something in the tone in which that simple command was given, and in the look by which it was accompanied; that effectually quelled John Bumpus in spite of himself. Violence had no effect on John, because in most cases he was able to meet it with superior violence, and in all cases he was willing to try. But to be put down in this mild way was perplexing. The words were familiar, the look straightforward and common enough. He could not understand it at all, and, being naturally of a philosophical turn of mind, he spent the next three minutes in a futile endeavour to analyse his own feelings. Before he had come to any satisfactory conclusion on the subject, the boat’s keel grated on the white sand of the shore.
Now, while all that we have been describing in the last and present chapters was going on, a very different series of events was taking place on the coral-island, for there, under the pleasant shade of the cocoa-nut palms, a tall, fair, and handsome youth was walking lightly down the green slopes towards the shore in anticipation of the arrival of the schooner, and a naked dark-skinned savage was dogging his steps, winding like a hideous snake among the bushes, and apparently seeking an opportunity to launch the short spear he carried in his hand at his unsuspecting victim.
As the youth and the savage descended the mountain-side together, the former frequently paused when an opening in the rich foliage peculiar to these beautiful isles enabled him to obtain a clear view of the magnificent bay and its fringing coral reef, on which the swell of the great Pacific—so calm and undulating out beyond—fell in tremendous breakers, with a long, low, solemn roar like distant thunder. As yet no object broke the surface of the mirror-like bay within the reef.
Each time the youth paused the savage stopped also, and more than once he poised his deadly spear, while his glaring eyeballs shone amid the green foliage like those of a tiger. Yet upon each occasion he exhibited signs of hesitation, and finally lowered the weapon, and crouched into the underwood.
To any one ignorant of the actors in this scene, the indecision, of the savage would have appeared unaccountable; for there could be no doubt of his desire to slay the fair youth—still less doubt of his ability to dart his formidable spear with precision. Nevertheless, there was good reason for his hesitating, for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated for the possession of these qualities in any degree above the average of his fellows, although he did undoubtedly exceed them in revenge, hatred, and the like. On one occasion young Stuart had,