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The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom




(1888)
Country of origin: Australia Australia
Available texts by the same author here Dokument


XXIII. A Hunting Expedition.

   AFTER a bottle of very harmless, home-brewed beer, qualified afterwards by a glass of the best French brandy which they had yet tasted, they set forth on their tour over the island, accompanied by the two priests, who were armed with very antiquated, barrel-loading fowling-guns--the sort of articles which you load from the top, pouring down small shot and ramming them home with a rod--I dare say about the only relics now to be found outside of an old iron and rag store.
   These guns were evidence in themselves of the pacific intentions of the missionaries--warranted to make a great noise and do very little damage.
   They met with no success in their search for game that afternoon; once they started a bush turkey, which Danby attempted to stalk, but he found the bird too much for him. The sides of the mountain here were in parts very barren, covered with loose crumbling earth and small stones, and very steep, so that climbing became a very difficult feat. After a while they reached the edge of a thicket, dense and dry-looking, with much dead wood, and hard to get through on account of the confusion of interlacing tendrils, all withered and shrunken. Here they found tracks of the wild boar, with deep, dark intersections, water-worn cuttings, which were completely covered in by closely-woven networks of branches and shrivelled leaves. Here, as they stooped and laboured to get through, the heat was intense and most oppressive in the broken light, while under the feet crunched the dry twigs, and from the blighted-looking leafage and clusters of delicate orchids which battened upon the dry branches, dropped myriads of small yellow ants, covering the exposed portions of the body, and getting under the shirts and up the trousers, while they bit and stung with a maddening sharpness from which there was no getting away; these ants are worst in the dry thickets on the mountain sides and summits.
   Father Ambrose smiled apologetically as Bowman and Danby danced about, and used their Saxon with unadulterated and emphatic purity, and when they emerged from this purgatory he energetically set to work brushing off the tiny tormentors from his companions, seemingly unconscious of the legions in possession of his own person.
   "Don't they bite you, Father?" asked Bowman, turning to assist the priest, after he had been liberated.
   "Yes! a little, just enough to give me a lesson in patience; we require that virtue in our work out here."
   Father Ambrose's deep-set, blue eyes had a very far-away look as he said this--a look in which hopeless melancholy was blent with apathetic resignation--yet his lips still wore the set, gentle smile which did duty for contentment.
   "Are you getting many converts here?" asked Bowman next.
   "I do not try to get converts; I am content if I can civilize them a little more, teach them to bury their dead so that the survivors may not suffer in consequence; and I teach them not to eat their enemies. They are a wise people in many ways, but they have no religion, and will not be taught to believe in spiritual benefits. When I say mass they come and look on; the little prints which I have placed round the walls seem to amuse them, and I believe that unconsciously they get the benefit of my prayers; to attempt more would be to fail. So far I have not laboured in vain, for they come for my advice when in trouble and perplexity, and I do what I can to give them good advice; this is all which I seek to achieve in my life-time."
   "Do you intend staying here long?" inquired Danby, irrelevantly.
   "I hope to die here, my friend," replied the priest gravely.
   "Have you forgotten your own land?"
   "Ah, France! No, I can never forget it; but we who are the servants of God have no land on carth, as we have no ties; it is easy for us to be able to make sacrifices, easier than for your ministers who have their wives and children to think about. I wonder sometimes how they can be missionaries with bonds like these holding them back; I think they must be very brave men, much more so than I could be."
   "That's a matter of opinion," muttered Bowman grimly, remembering a few other motives which the simple Romanist overlooked.
   They were now walking through the fields towards the sea-beach, along which the native villages were built. A slight turn from the pathway brought them to another thicket, differing altogether from the one on the hill; here the parasites were covered with greenery, and the leaves were moist and cool, while the soil felt swampy with the constant drippings.
   A dense thicket composed of sugar-cane, partly cultivated, with castor--oil plants shooting up here and there and long lush grasses which bent and fell over with their own weight. They did not penetrate very far, but could see that here lay a rich harvest for the future workers when their time came.
   They now passed through the fields towards the native villages, Father Ambrose leading the way with rapid strides, while the others followed as well as they could, guided by the sound of the rustling grass which closed over their heads; frequently he had to shout out to show his direction, for it was all a wild stampede through moving blades. As they went on sometimes the ground rose and the grass became scanter, when they had a passing glimpse of heads in front before they dipped out of sight.
   On one of these barren mounds the missionary paused to take breath and allow his companions to get up to him. As they stood he pointed out Mount Yule with its flat table-top, and the island spreading round; the mission-station stood out boldly against the mellow afternoon sky, while beneath them lay the two native villages, Rolto Arriena and Morna Cherne.
   "My chapel is just between the two villages, behind that dark clump of trees, and if we make haste we shall be able to see it before the sun goes down."
   They all hastened after this, and making a détour by the edge of the cultivated fields, passed through Morna Chorna, with its huts raised amongst the clusters of cocoa-nut palms, and where the natives very gravely welcomed them.
   "There has been a death here last night, and they are all mourning, otherwise we might have had some fun."
   At the entrance to the village a young native met them with his body ash-smeared, and carrying in his hand a small firebrand which he was blowing hard upon to keep alight, with a most dejected appearance of melancholy. The good priest stopping him asked him a few questions, receiving very hopeless replies, after which he turned round and explained that this was the eldest son of the dead man whom they were mourning for at the village; being the eldest son, his part of the rites consisted of holding lonely night vigils in the forest. At each sundown he left the corpse to pass the hours till daybreak in the woods, and, as all natives dread the darkness, and believe implicitly in ghosts and evil demons, the horror of those lonely hours more than counterbalanced the grief which he might otherwise have felt at his affliction; the firebrand was to light the fire which he said would keep away the ghosts, so that the blowing part was a most important one with him, as all his thoughts were concentrated in the effort to keep it alight, and yet make it last the mile or two of distance between the wood and the village.
   Poor boy, I doubt if he felt much for his father, as he left them to go on his lonely watch; what feelings he still retained were evidently expended upon himself.
   It is very wonderful how pitiful we all can become when self poises up as the victim, how pathetic we grow over our own miseries, and how we wonder that other people cannot see them in exactly the same light as we do; but fortunately for the unity of the world, and unfortunately for the individual cause, each applicant to pity is so intent upon his own case that he has no time to devote to his neighbour's wrongs, so each atom in the grand whole plan goes on wriggling his own wriggle while maintained in his own circumscribed space by a stern order of economy far beyond human judgment, and the man is of no more account than the sparrow who may drop dead from his perch without, as far as we know, any sentimental self-condolence. This is a truth which man cannot learn in youth, or in age either, if God has answered his cry for "daily bread;" it is only revealed to those who rise up hopeless and lie down wanting, in spite of their everlasting cry, "Our Father!"
   Inside the village named Roiro Arrienna they found great preparations going on for the funeral of the old chief; so that with little persuasion Father Ambrose induced the visitors to wait and witness the ceremony.
   All night and during the early part of the day, the relatives and friends had spent their strength weeping and lamenting wildly; they did not seem to have any deity to appeal to or reproach in this their hour of grief and woe. The French priest explained that this was the hopeless part of the missionary's work, the futile endeavours to create a faith or the necessity man has to own a greater power beyond his comprehension; what they could see and touch they would credit, but nothing beyond, yet they feared the darkness as children do, and had vague notions about ghosts and evil spirits--the world beyond was a world to regard with horror as something evil.
   As they drew near to the hut where the body lay in solemn state, and where a large number of the natives had assembled--the relatives easily to be distinguished by the black ashes with which they were thickly bedaubed--two women and two men came out carrying the nude body between them, supported on bamboo-poles and cross-pieces. The grave had been dug in the centre of the village between two cocoa-nut palms, about two feet in depth, a mere scraping away of the loose sea-sand.
   Then the younger son brought out the sleeping-mat of the dead man, and carefully laid it in the bottom of the grave, upon which the body was gently placed, while the outside mourners stood silently watching.
   When this portion was finished a lane was made in the crowd, down which the widow with her daughers, rushed with bitter cries, plunging themselves wildly upon the body and tearing out their hair, while a party of young men went slowly round and round the grave chanting an extempore ditty of laudation of the departed one's great deeds and virtues, beating loudly all the time upon drums, while over the scene the ruddy rays of the setting sun slanted between the palms, and made long sombre shadows over the level sands.
   "We had better leave them now," whispered Father Ambrose, hastily, making the sign of the cross over the grave, and moving away.
   It might have been a warning the good priest meant, or only his sense of delicacy, or perhaps a blending of the two qualities, for as they moved towards the open space, they could not help noticing one or two evil glances directed towards them from the crowd of silent onlookers, while the women were rapidly following the group who had now taken off the widow and her daughters, leaving the men by themselves--always a dangerous sign with savages.
   "A lovely sunset, is it not?" observed the priest, as they walked along the sea-shore, which was thickly strewn with many varieties of delicately-coloured and beautifully-shaped shells. "A lovely sunset compensates for much discomfort and danger, yet we must walk quickly if you would see my church before it grows dark. Are your revolvers loaded?"
   "Yes," replied the company; "why?"
   "Nothing to fear, only do not look round; but see if you can hit that branch over there."
   A branch of cotton-tree gleamed out of the dark mass of foliage where he pointed, like a bar of gold with its scarlet blossom intensely red where the sunray caught it, as the priest pointed out the mark. Bowman raising his weapon, took a quick aim, and with the sharp report the flower-clad branch fell at the feet of Danby, who picked it up.
   "A very good shot," murmured Father Ambrose, "and quite effective for the present. Now we may get along in peace."
   Bowman glanced back as he heard these words, to see a retreating band of natives; evidently the report had frightened them from whatever evil intention they had in view, for a couple of spears lay on the sand.
   "Hallo! was it going to be an attack, Father?" cried Bowman, in a startled voice.
   "I was half afraid it might have been, as I gathered from a word or two dropped during the ceremony. I think they were beginning to charge one of you with having the evil eye which had caused the death; they are like children, and will not listen to reason, but they know enough to respect the gun of the white man. Yet, had you missed that branch, I fear we would have had to fight."
   The cotton-tree branch became at once an object of general interest.
   "Yes! to-night they will go back and tell a wonderful tale about the fire-stick that speaks and kills without touching, and to-morrow the tree will be regarded with great awe. We have time just to get a short look at the church, and then home."
   They had now reached the little hut, which was dignified by the title of church, and the priest unlocking the door, showed them with a gentle apology the interior: rude log walls, whereon were tacked a few cheap and highly-coloured prints of the Passion, with a couple of rough packing-cases raised up on end to form the altar, covered with a white table-cloth, and two candles stuck upon wooden sticks--a place for thoughtless people to laugh at, yet not even the careless Danby felt inclined to smile, as the poor priest uncovered and entered with bent head.
   "They come to look at my pictures, and I pray for them while they are looking. You will excuse me, gentlemen; just one moment, while I thank God that we have escaped a danger."
   He quietly knelt down before the altar with his two brothers, while the others looked round them for a moment, and then with one impulse turned towards the setting sun.
   Over between them and that orange and crimson lustre lay the sea-built village of Morna Cherna, now completely deserted, as the two closely--connected villages were allies, and the inhabitants had joined in the funeral ceremonies, and also possibly with the avengers.
   A canoe or two lying idle on the sands; some mats and débris of cooking, with cooking utensils scattered about. The houses, built on piles of about four and five feet above water-mark, line both sides of the beach, and form a square at the end, with the ocean outside shivering and glittering as it passes downward from the sun, now seemingly dipping into it to the wave-lapped strand.
   Behind the houses on the shore side lie dense thickets of mangrove, cotton, and tamarind trees, with the occasional feathery tops of the palms, or bare white branches of dead wood projecting: a tropic bush ever presents to the eye a mingling of the seasons, where death instead of winter strips the leaves.
   There is silence on the shore and in the forest, for the houses are tenantless, and the birds have gone to roost. They do not lock doors when they go out in New Guinea, and their dogs are too sociable to stay behind their masters, so, fortunately for the travellers, they had no danger to apprehend from the village through which they had to pass. Danger might lurk amongst the mangroves when darkness came on, yet even here they felt comparatively safe, guarded as they were by the fears of the natives for their speaking-tubes, joined to their horror of the night. The natives make night-attacks on enemies but seldom, unless they have the moon to guide them: this night would be dark as pitch, and from the appearance of the sky likely to be a rough one.
   The sun was a round globe of fire surrounded by dense purple fumes and overhung with swarming masses of orange and vermilion, with intersections of emerald green, and overhead, deep streaks and rivulets of intense blue, with dun-coloured clouds, like broken-up and cracked clay banks on a swampy land beginning to flood.
   A livid glare fell over the shimmering waves, and lit upwards, as if by reflection those huge monstrous shapes of tossing clouds with a metal--like lustre, as if they had been copper and bronze sheets shattered by artillery. This voiceless motion of the heavens, out of all unison with the deadly quiet of the vegetable world and the lifeless stillness of the deserted huts, touched, as with a chilly hand, the hearts of those who watched the turmoil above and heard with painful distinctness the low mutterings of the three priests at that primitive altar.
   "We must rush at once for cover," cried the priest, coming to the door and locking it quickly as he saw the rapid weather-changes. "We are not safe here if the tribes re-form and occupy their villages in front. Come, I will lead you a short cut."
   No sound as yet from the coming storm as they started at a run along the grey beach and through the black jungle, only a few disturbed cockatoos, who rose chattering from their roost to seek a more distant shelter. Helter-skelter all went through the grass again, tumbling over one another, yet guided by the sounds in front; they had about a mile to get over before they could get free from those stinging, twining reeds, and in their hurry they no longer took note of outside sounds, while the darkness gathered down like a black tissue, fold upon fold, with appalling rapidity.
   Out, at last, to the open, where they can see the little mission-station upon the promontory, with the sky behind showing ghastly illumined, reflected clouds on a cold steel background, with a dusky blackness over against them in the west. The house and outstanding huts startlingly silhouetted against those electric and brilliant, but light-absorbing, rolling mountains of clouds. Out at last, with panting chests and steaming bodies, for the heat is terrific, and the travellers are as thoroughly drenched with perspiration as if they had plunged through a river.
   "Let us rest for a moment," panted Bowman and Danby with one breath, while the burly old captain, rolling heavily through the brakes, tripped over a stump and fell, without an effort to rise again--too much exhausted even to blaspheme.
   Father Ambrose turned with parted lips to take a handkerchief from his pocket with his usual quietness, while his companions leaned without speaking upon the barrels of their rusty fowling-pieces, passing at intervals their shrunken hands over their brows and scattering the thickly-gathering beads of sweat as they started out.
   "This is very good for us after the fever," observed the priest, when he had recovered his voice, "we do not often get such a bath."
   "That may be," grunted out the prostrate captain huskily, "but I'm d----blowed if it seems good for me."
   "Yes, you do look considerably blowed at present, commodore," responded the ever-ready Danby, who, being the slenderest of the company, had soonest recovered. "But if you don't want to be drowned as well as blowed, I think you had best be shifting your camp."
   A blaze of wild-fire broke from the ghostly mass behind the mission--house as Danby spoke, and seemed to envelop it and lick it out of sight as it brought out objects with deadly precision near at hand, lighting up the Frenchman's clear features and the swollen visage of the horrified skipper at his feet, who greeted it with a more than ordinary shriek of fear or agony.
   The blaze, though not lasting more than a second, permitted them to see besides the forms of friends, even the most minute details, and even the individual blades of reeds; it also showed them the dark faces and mop-like heads of over a score of antagonists with up-lifted spears; and then it was darkness more intense than ever, while the captain's shrill yell of pain mingled with their fierce yelling of vengeance.
   "Are you wounded, friend?" anxiously asked the priest, stooping down; while flash, flash, from two barrels, with following reports, mixed up the cries.
   "Yes," groaned the poor skipper, rolling about in the darkness, and uttering oaths while he did so.
   "Keep silent, friends, and move out quickly; let us get to the house if we can. Let me lift you up, my poor friend."
   After much wriggling about and vain groping, the captain was got up; and, between Bowman and the priest, urged up the hill, even while the downpour of rain came upon them without seemingly the customary few large drops which act as the prelude to tropic showers.
   Were they a group of spectres which that flash had revealed, or were the yells imaginary? Nothing seemed to follow those two revolver reports as they dashed up the steep, slipping sides of the mound through that deluge, or they were all in too great a state of excitement to pay attention to any outside sound in their frantic desire to get under cover. There was no time to know who followed, and they could not see one another, or know whether it was a friend or an enemy which they struck against as they slid backwards; and not until they were inside the house with the door barred could they pause to find out whether they were all there or not.
   Courage is a splendid quality, and easy to practise in theory; even in daylight it is not so difficult to brace up to an emergency, but in such a sightless darkness it becomes like the weight of a nightmare; to fly is the first impulse then from the evil which we cannot see. A fight in the dark is decidedly demoralizing.
   They had all run recklessly, even the wounded captain after the first start required little urging on; it was a regular stampede, with the feeling in each back as we used to feel as boys, when running down a dark stair. Perhaps two minutes elapsed between the first flash at the foot of the hill and the next flash, as the priest was fumbling about to get his matchbox inside the mission-house, yet what an eternity of horrors for all.
   Possibly the sudden blaze of wild-fire which revealed each party to the other had done more to frighten away the natives than the aimless shots from the revolvers, for beside heaven's ordnance man's paltry fireworks are less than farthing rushlights beside electric flames. When the matches had been found and ignited and the candle set alight, it revealed the company intact, and not any further sign of disturbance outside than the rushing of waters from roof and sky.
   The first thought of the hosts, after looking after the fastening of doors and windows, was to see to the injuries sustained by the captain, who now squatted on the floor with rather a perplexed and uneasy expression on his burly features.
   "Where were you wounded, my friend?" asked the priest, bending tenderly over him.
   "That is just what I cannot tell you, for I don't know myself now, that rush up the hill seems to have driven out all recollection from me."
   "Ah!" the priest smiled, "then it is not so serious as I thought."
   Captain MacAndrews ruefully scratched his Achilles-like head and looked over to where his tormentor Danby stood, but that young gentleman was too seriously engaged in attending to his own comfort to pay much heed to anything else. He, with Bowman, had taken off their shirts, and were hard at work wringing out much of the moisture; his roasting might come later, but at present he was safe, so in a surly fashion he slowly began to exert himself and follow their wise example, while the three missionaries, without heeding their own dripping garments, set about the task of making their guests comfortable by lighting a fire and bringing out the cognac, both of which were eagerly greeted by all now that the rain had cooled the air, and their drenching inwardly and outwardly made them the more susceptible to the change.
   A little quinine, about the proportion of six grains to each, was also accepted as a preventive against this fever, which is so insidious in its approach and so easy to get, particularly in such condition as they all were then; after this they could afford to look about them and talk.
   If the Europeans could go about, like the natives, in the dress which nature alone provides, I doubt if there would be many cases of fever in tropical countries, a waistband, which protects the liver and kidneys, being all that is required by way of covering; for it is the chill which comes on by the contact of damp clothes, and clothes are always wet in countries where the least exertion causes the moisture to start out in dense beads on every portion of the body, wherein the danger lies, and to this may be attributed the dying out of native tribes who come into contact with the white men and ape their customs, even more than to the fire-water that they introduce.
   "I could have sworn I was wounded somewhere when that flash o' lightning showed me up the niggers with their spears, but where it can be I have no more notion than Moses."
   Thus muttered the honest if imaginative skipper, as he turned his wet shirt about before wringing it like the others, preparatory to drying it at the now blazing log fire. A picturesque group of half-naked albinoes they looked as they held their sole upper garments to the flames. The three missionaries had proffered them a change; but in the tropics to go without clothes for a while, is not much of a hardship, so, as they were anxious to get once more on board, they preferred to stand as they were and wait on the drying, particularly as they knew to borrow a change meant depriving the Fathers of their own comfort, as the clergymen were all too modest to bare themselves before their visitors--a feeling of shyness the others did not experience for a second. Instead then of accepting the too generous offer, they all united in persuading the Fathers to retire and guard themselves from a relapse of the dreaded malaria not yet out of their systems.
   Silence outside still, with a most refreshing sense of coolness, for now that the rain had ceased to pour with the same abruptness with which it began, the suffocating heat had been succeeded by the grateful freshness which rain-soaked soil ever produces.
   The mosquitoes also swarmed in countless hordes, ravenous and large, with sonorous trumpets--from the damp mangroves they came, where they are bred, to the exposed white men, whom, no doubt, they scented for miles away. They were not so numerous as they had been, the good Frenchman mentioned while setting the supper dishes.
   "Then I don't wonder that you look thin," answered Bowman, stifling about a myriad of them with the volume of smoke he puffed from his lips against the phalanx as he spoke. "We are pretty well used to mosquitoes in Thursday Island, but you beat us hollow with your Yule Island fellows, Father."
   "Yes, they are very strong, and assertive of their own notions of right of way," replied the missionary, pouring into a tin flat dish stew made from preserved mutton, yams, and onions, with a few of the native herbs, which now filled the room with a most appetizing odour.
   "I guess it was one of those tiger-fellows who progged you with his proboscis, captain, when you thought you were wounded with the spear to-night; they are always worse close to the ground."
   Captain MacAndrews pretended not to hear this sally of the ever--buoyant Danby.
   "By the way, have you found the locality of that hurt yet?"
   "If you don't shut up, perhaps you'll know where your hurt is presently, youngster," growled the skipper, angrily.
   "Let us sit, gentlemen, while it is warm," observed the pacific priest, anxious to prevent a scene.
   "By Jove, it smells delicious," cried Bowman, sniffing up the aroma with great gusto.
   "We French are all cooks, as you know," replied the priest, "if we have anything to cook."
   "How do you manage?"
   "It is an instinct, like painting or poetry, and when it guides you rightly the result is always satisfactory. Already we have begun to grow our own onions, and in another year, if spared, we expect to glean a splendid harvest. With a very small piece of beef or mutton, and what we can pick up in the fields, it is not difficult to make a simple dish, though we sometimes run short of salt, and we find it difficult to overcome that necessity; yet I venture to assert that any one may become a fair cook who will condescend to devote as much attention to his pot as he might do over any other composition, for it is in the firing chiefly that the dish is spoilt and the flavour lost. The pan, when once on the fire, should not be lost sight of for a single second, while the fire for stews and dishes of that description cannot be too fierce; indeed, I may say that when I am cooking a dish I have no time even for prayer until it is dished, which reminds us, gentlemen, to thank God now for the supper which He has been good enough to permit us to live to cook, and, I trust, all enjoy."
   The missionary, as he said this, bent his head in silence, leaving them each to offer their thanks as they felt inclined, according to their own views on this subject, after which they all fell to with that avidity which hungry men can, and very soon showed their appreciation of his culinary skill by leaving clean platters.
   "You will stay to-night with me, gentlemen?"
   "Not unless you dread an attack, Father."
   "Not for my sake would I ask you to stay, but for your own. They will not harm us; indeed, I expect it was owing to their uncertainty in the darkness as to whom they might strike which prevented them flinging their spears to-night."
   "Then we must go very soon, as our men must be warned, otherwise the steamer may be in danger from the canoes."
   "Very true; then we will go at once."
   "You are not coming, Father, surely?"
   "Surely I shall come and see you safely from our island. We shall take lanterns so that they will know we are with you, and since you will not be my guests I shall be yours to-night, and to-morrow will be able to quiet their suspicions. I pray to God that you may not have shot any one to-night."
   "I think not," responded Bowman, "I aimed over their heads."
   "And I couldn't have hit them, however much I tried," added Danby. "It isn't in me to hit anything less than an elephant, and then only if he balanced the barrel with his tusks."
   "Then all will be well," replied the priest. "Let us go, if you are ready."
   "Quite ready." And looking once more to their weapons, withdrawing the cartridges already in and putting in fresh ones, they all prepared once more to go into the risky darkness.
   The two assistant priests went out first, and shortly returned, reporting all as quiet. When the party reached the mound, they could see over by the villages the dusky reflection amongst the deep midnight space which betokened large fires burning on the beach.
   "I think all is well," muttered Father Ambrose, "but we will walk as quietly as possible with our lamps shining toward the sea. Antone will walk behind with his light covered, but ready for use if anything suspicious occurs, while I will go a little way ahead; but, gentlemen, don't use your pistols, unless at the last emergency. Remember that life is as precious to savage as to Christian."
   No more words passed as they went in single file down through the fields and into the mangrove thicket, where they had left their dingey in the afternoon. Pedro, the second assistant, followed after the leader, with Bowman next, and the captain in the centre, much against his will, since he had Danby behind him, who at intervals made him leap with a prick in the ribs when least expected, forcing him at the same time to smother the exclamation of horror as he fancied each touch to be a native spear. The method of silencing him he adopted was to put his hand suddenly over his mouth and whisper in his ear, "Hush, for God's sake! do you hear nothing?" A momentous march without incident, except these torturing moments for the poor unwieldy old skipper, who rolled along with ice--cold drops dripping down his back, and a blending of impotent rage and fear choking him, while his tormentor never ceased his game until at the water's edge, when, by an adroit push, he sent him into the water, and afterwards added to his injuries the worse one of pretending to have saved his life by lugging him out again all dripping, like a Newfoundland dog.
   "Sharks bad hereabouts I should say, Father?" asked Danby innocently, as he took his place behind the poor old captain.
   "Yes, they are," replied Father Vincent, taking his seat.
   "Another narrow squeak, for you, admiral. I expect a bottle of whisky at the least out of you for this last good action."
   "You'll get it, too, my boy," responded the captain, fervently, taking an oar and pushing the dingey from the rocks. "Thank God, that's the last of Yule Island for me!--a regular nest of pirates."


Chapter 24 >