CHAPTER L.
MR. MOLE'S TROUBLES AGAIN--AN ADVENTURE WITH NERO--LAND HO!--THEFIRST VIEW OF AUSTRALIA.
Let us draw the curtain.
The particulars given in the preceding chapter must be as unpleasant tothe readers as they were to Harkaway, to Jefferson, to Dick Harvey, andbeyond all to Harry Girdwood and young Jack.
They are not agreeable matters to relate, and we gladly draw the veilupon such a scene.
Once in the care of Doctor Anderson, the prisoner was tended carefully,and the doctor's best skill was employed in bringing him back tohealth.
But his convalescence was a long time in being brought about, for notonly was he cruelly maimed, but, to use the doctor's own expression--
"The scourge had knocked him to bits in health generally."
* * * * *
"What a capital sailor old Nero makes, Harry."
"Splendid."
"He only wants to know how to chew."
"And take grog like old Mole."
"True, and then he'd be an out-and-out sailor."
These words were part of a conversation which our two young comradeswere indulging in one afternoon towards sun-down as they walked to andfro on deck.
They had rigged Nero out in full nautical costume, and taught himseveral sailor tricks of manner.
He hitched up his inexpressibles with a jerk that the late T. P. Cookemight have made studies from.
And his bow and scrape, although more like a stage sailor than the realthing itself, were ticked off so admirably, that you expected him tostart off into a rattling hornpipe.
But perhaps the greatest treat of all was to see him pretending to takeobservations through a telescope.
"Nero," cried young Jack.
The monkey ran up at the word.
"Give us your arm, Nero."
And so drawing a paw under each of their arms, they promenaded thedeck, these three young monkeys together, to the great amusement anddelight of the sailors generally.
"Why, Joe!" said Sam Mason, "he looks as great a swell as the portadmiral."
"Port admiral! As the first lord himself."
"Do you know, Joe, that Billy Longbow had a monkey once as would--"
"Now for a yarn."
"No, this is a born fact," persisted Sam Mason, stoutly. "Billy Longbowhad a monkey on board ship as used to mock the bos'en, and one day whenhe see the bos'en take out his rattan to larrup one of the powdermonkeys, Jocko went for to give the bos'en one for hisself."
"By way of protecting one of his own species, I s'pose," suggested Joe.
"Perhaps. Well, he felt in all his pockets for a rattan, and hehappened to get hold of the tip of his tail. Now he seed the bos'enlugging hard to get the rattan out of his pocket, for it had gotentangled with the lanyard of his jack-knife, and so Jocko tugsprecious hard at his tail, presuming it to be a rattan likewise, Is'pose, and, by Jove, if he doesn't pull it right out."
"Come, now," cried Joe Basalt, with a grunt, "I ain't agoing to swallerthat tale."
"It's a fact. Billy Longbow was the most truthful pal I ever had--outcame his nether rattan."
"Well, what next?"
"Nothing next," answered Sam Mason, with a sly look. "That was the endof Jocko's tail, and it's the end of mine too."
Now while they were engaged in listening to Sam Mason's Billy Longbowanecdote, they saw Mr. Mole come out of the deck saloon, where he hadbeen dozing.
He walked up the deck with a certain apparent unsteadiness of gait.
"Old Mole is half seas over," said Harry Girdwood.
"I'll tell you what. Wouldn't it be a lark if we could get him to strutup and down with Nero, without knowing it?"
"That's more easily said than done, I imagine."
"Wait and see."
They crept back out of sight as Mr. Mole passed along. Then, havingmade a hurried whispered consultation, young Jack stepped forth aloneand tackled Mr. Mole.
"Taking the air, sir?"
"Yes, Jack--hiccup--yes, my dear boy, and I have come to look out forland."
"Land?"
"Yes."
"Are we near?"
"Sho--sho--I mean so--I shpose--s'pose--"
Mr. Mole was conscious of his speech being a little bit thick, and hehastened to add that he was suffering from toothache.
"My mouth ish sho shwollen--swollen, I mean--that I can hardlysp--speak plainly," he said.
"Dear me! how shocking!" exclaimed young Jack.
Slipping his arm under Mr. Mole's they walked up and down talking.
Meanwhile, young Jack tipped the wink to Harry Girdwood, who slippedout of his hiding-place with Nero, and followed Mole and Jack along thedeck.
Young Jack chose his opportunity well, and drawing his arm out of Mr.Mole's he pushed Nero's in its place.
Mr. Mole, all unconscious of the change in his companion, struttedalong, chattering away, secretly pleased at having such an excellentlistener by his side.
"It'sh really pleasure to talk to you, my dear boy," he said.
"You un--stand with half a word--and I enjoy--aconservation--conserva--singular thing--I can't say conservashun. Ienjoy--a talk--an intellectshul chat more with you than sitting downto wine with Jeffershon and Harvey, and your dear father. Goodfellarsh--jolly good fellarsh--only too fond of sitting over wine.Shocking habit--shpending hours in getting tipshy--hiccup!"
* * * * *
Now, while Mr. Mole poured out his philosophical reflections intoNero's ear, Harry Gridwood went and fetched Harvey; old Jack andJefferson.
Young Jack stepped back to the door of the deck saloon, and sat downwhile Mole turned round and hobbled up the deck again, with Nero stillleaning upon his arm.
As the old gentleman came up to where they all stood, they could hearhim still laying down the law to Nero.
"Yesh, Jack, my dear boy," he was saying, "wine'sh a jolly goodthing--to be ushed and not abushed. Blow my toothache--toothache--sovery dericulous--don't know what I'm shaying."
Mr. Mole winked and blinked like an owl in daylight.
"Jack."
"Sir."
"Whash the devil--Jack!"
He started in utter amazement.
"Yes, sir."
"Why, Mr. Mole," said Harvey, suddenly popping out of the cabin,followed by Jefferson and old Jack, "what on earth are you walking upand down with him for?"
"Who?"
Before another word could be spoken, Nero, on a secret sign from hisyoung master, took off his tarpaulin hat, and dabbed it on Mr. Mole'shead.
Mole turned suddenly round upon his companion.
"Nero--the devil fly away with you, you beast!"
He made a dash at the monkey; but the latter was up in the shrouds andout of danger in the twingling of an eye.
* * * * *
"Land ho!"
"Which way?"
"Due south."
Harkaway had a glass up in a crack.
"That's right," he said. "Gentlemen all, allow me to introduce you toAustralia."
CHAPTER LI.
HUNSTON IS DISPOSED OF.
Yes, there was the continent of Australia.
The ladies came running up on deck at the news, for the first sight ofland after a long voyage is a thing to make your heart beat, howevermuch you like the sea.
"I can't see anything yet," said little Emily, after peering vainlythrough a telescope for five minutes.
"Because you don't get the proper focus," explained young Jack.
"Then you fix it for me, since you are so clever," retorted the younglady.
"That's an Irish remedy," laughed young Jack.
However, he helped her to fix upon the focus, and then she had thegratification of seeing the land.
It was a beautiful verdure-clad range of hills that they had firstperceived from the distance, which were half a mile or more inland.
So that they found themselves pr
esently much nearer land than they hadsupposed.
It was covered with wild luxuriant vegetation, but it was altogetheruncultivated.
"Harkaway," said Jefferson, as they stood together contemplating thescene, "this is where Hunston must be dropped ashore."
Harkaway thought it over for a few moments.
"Yes, Jefferson," he said, presently, "I think you are right, this willdo. He can't well starve here, and it will be better than dropping himamongst the civilised people."
A boat was manned, and provisioned, and lowered.
Then Hunston was brought up from below.
His face had never changed since the first moment that he had recoveredfrom the great shock of the flogging he had received.
Apparently there was some fixed purpose in his mind now that it wouldtake much to uproot.
He never said a word when they came to fetch him.
He was not a little anxious to know all about it, but such was hispride that he would have perished sooner than breathe a word.
As he was lowered into the boat, Harkaway just gave him to understandwhat he was going to do in a few hurriedly-chosen words.
"We are going to put you ashore here, Hunston; not that you have anyright to expect the least consideration at our hands, but we do notwish to have it on our consciences that you have been badly treated byus. You will be left here, far away from any human habitation, whereyou can do no harm, at least, for some time to come. We shall leave youthese provisions, but we have no arms or ammunition to give you."
Hunston listened silently--impassively to these words.
Not the slightest change in the expression of his countenance indicatedthat he heard the words which been addressed to him.
"You are going, and our ways through the rest of our lives may bewidely separated. We may never meet again. It will be somegratification to you to know that you have once more most keenlydisappointed me--that I would have given much to see the least signs ofrepentance in you--that the greatest delight would have been for me tosay to myself 'At least I have conquered the evil in that man's natureby showing him a good return for his vicious acts, and turned a bitterenemy into a friend,' but that was a forlorn hope. May you live torepent your evil courses."
Hunston turned.
Not a word escaped him.
The boat pulled off from the vessel, and in the same sullen silence hewas landed with his rations.
There were forty pounds of hard biscuits, a good twenty pounds of saltbeef, besides rice, flour, a jar of water, and other matters whichmight be necessary, should he fail to fall in with the means of gettingfood and drink for some considerable time.
But when that was gone he might starve.
THE END.
Jack Harkaway and His Son's Escape from the Brigands of Greece Page 51