CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
OUT ON THE BLUE WATER.
Everything was so new to me that, on embarking at Marseilles, I wasnever tired of inspecting the large steamer, and trying, with onlymoderate success, to talk to the French sailors, who, on learning ourdestination, were very civil; but, after the first day or two, began tojoke me about never coming back any more.
It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began totalk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all,about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feethigh, and would look upon me, they assured me, as a _bonne bouche_.
The third day out on the beautiful blue water, as some of the passengershad guns out, and were shooting at the sea-birds for amusement merely, apractice that I should have thought very cruel but for the fact thatthey never once hit anything, Uncle Dick came up to me on the poop deckand clapped me on the shoulder.
"Now, Nat," he said, "there's plenty of room out here for a rifle ballto go humming away as far as it likes without danger to anyone; so getout your rifle and you shall have a practice."
"At the sea-gulls, uncle?" I said.
"No, no; nonsense!" he said; "we don't shoot sea-gulls with a rifle. Ishall start you with a target."
"A target, uncle?" I said; "but if you do, we shall leave it all behindin a very short time."
"To be sure we shall," he replied, laughing; "and then we'll haveanother."
I ran down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to goon deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but Igot over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for mewith half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown outtightly, while the bottles were empty and firmly corked.
"Now, Nat," he said, "here are your targets, and I reckon upon yourhaving half a dozen shots at each before the steamer takes us too faraway, unless you manage to sink it sooner."
I looked at my uncle to see if he was laughing at me, but he was quiteserious, and, in obedience to his order, I loaded and stood ready.
"Now, look here, my boy," he said; "this will be rather a difficulttask, for both your target and you are in motion. So you must aim aswell as you can. I should draw trigger just as the bladder is rising."
"But how shall we know if I hit it?"
"You are not very likely to hit it, Nat," he said smiling; "but if youdo, the bladder will collapse--the bottle be shivered to fragments, andsink. Now let us see."
It made me feel nervous to see so many people collect about me, one andall eager to witness my skill, and I knew enough French to understand agood many of their remarks. Some said I must be a very skilful shot,others that I could not shoot at all; and one way and another theydisconcerted me so that, when my uncle threw the first bladder over theside, and I saw it floating away, I felt so confused that I let it getsome distance before I fired.
"Reload," said my uncle; and I did so, and fired again.
"Reload," he said; and, having obeyed him, I waited till the bladder wason the top of a wave, and again fired without result.
"Again," said my uncle; "don't hesitate, and fire sharply."
The bladder was now getting a long way astern and looking very small, sosmall that I knew I should not hit it, and consequently I felt nosurprise that it should go floating away.
"Don't lose time, Nat," my uncle continued, just as if it was quite amatter of course that I should go on missing shot after shot.
So once more I prepared to fire, and as I did so I saw that two of theFrench passengers had their telescopes fixed upon the object at which,after taking very careful aim, speck as it seemed, I fired.
To my utter astonishment, as the smoke rose I saw no bladder wasfloating on the waves, a fact of which the lookers-on had alreadyinformed me by a round of applause.
"He would not hit them when they were close," cried one passenger. "Isaid, he would not try. It was un grand shot, messieurs, un coupmerveilleux."
I felt scarlet in the face, and grew the more and more ashamed as firstone and then another insisted upon shaking hands with me.
"Now, Nat," said my uncle in a low voice, "after that you will lose yourcharacter if you do not hit some more."
"Pray, don't send out another, uncle," I whispered.
"Why not, boy? What does it matter if you do miss? Keep on practising,and never mind what people say. Are you ready?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Fire, then, as soon as you get a good view of the bladder."
I waited until it was about forty yards away, and rising slowly to thetop of a wave, when, calculating the distance as well as I could, Ifired, and the bladder disappeared.
I could not believe it, and expected each moment to see it come back tothe surface; but no, there was no bladder visible; and, having reloaded,my uncle sent another afloat, bidding me wait till it was farther awaybefore I fired.
I obeyed him and missed. Fired again and missed, but the third time thebladder collapsed and sank, and my reputation as a marksman was made.
The French passengers would have petted and spoiled me had not my uncleinterfered; and when we were once more alone he began to talk of mysuccess.
"You quite exceeded anything I expected, Nat," he said smiling. "Howyou managed it, my boy, I cannot tell. The first time I set it down topure accident; but when you repeated it again and again, all I can say,my boy, is that your eyes must be wonderfully good, and your aim andjudgment even better. I doubt with all my practice whether I could havebeen more successful."
"I think it must have been chance, uncle," I said, "for I seemed to haveno time to aim, and the vessel heaved up so just then."
"No, my boy," he replied, "it was not chance, but the result in a greatmeasure of your practice with your gun; but you will not always shoot sowell as that. When you come to be out with me in the wilds of one ofthe islands we visit, and have perhaps been tramping miles through roughforest, you will find it hard work to hit the object at which you aim."
"But it will be easier to shoot from the ground than from on shipboard,uncle, will it not?"
"For some things yes, my boy, for others no. But wait a bit, Nat, andwe shall see."
The practice was kept up all through our voyage, and I became quite anadept at breaking floating bottles and other objects that were sent overthe side, for the bladders soon came to an end; but our voyage was veryuneventful. It was always enjoyable, for there was so much that wasfresh to see. I never complained about the heat, which was very great,although people were lying about under awnings, while I used to get intothe chains, or the rigging below the bowsprit, so as to gaze down intothe wonderfully clear water and watch the dolphins and bonita as theydarted through the sunlit depths with such ease and grace.
Sometimes I have wished that I could be a fish, able with a sweep or twoof my powerful tail to dart myself through the water just as I pleased,or float at any depth, keeping up with the huge steamer as it was drivenon.
Then a change would come over me, and I would think to myself: Well, I'mvery glad I'm not a fish; for just as I would be watching some lovelymackerel-like fellow with a flashing back of mottled blue and purple,some monster ten times his size would make a dart at him and engulf himin his capacious throat. And as I watched the larger fish seize theirfood, it seemed to me that once they could get within easy range theyseemed to suck their prey into their jaws, drawing it in with the greatrush of water they sent through their gills.
It was not tempting at such times and above all when one used to see athin grey fellow, six or eight feet long, seeming to sneak by the sideof the ship, or just astern, where there was an eddy. Every now andthen it would turn half over and show the pale under parts as it made asnatch at something that looked good to eat; and after a good many triesthe sailors managed to catch one by means of a hook baited with a pieceof ham that had been condemned as high.
It was only about six feet long, and when it lay on the wet deckth
rashing about with its tail I thought that after all a shark was notsuch a dangerous-looking creature as I expected, and I said so to myuncle.
"Think not, Nat?" he said.
"Why, no, uncle, I don't think I should be afraid of a shark; I think Icould catch such a fellow as that with a rod and line."
"Ah! Nat, some of them run up to fifteen or twenty feet in length," hesaid; "and they are awfully savage brutes. Such a one as this would beenough to kill a man."
"He don't look like it, uncle," I said. "Why, look here!"
I ran to where the shark lay, and stooping down, seized it with bothhands by the thin part just before where the tail forked, meaning togive it a shake and drag the brute along the deck; but just as I gottight hold the creature seemed to send a wave down its spine, and withone flip I was sent staggering across the deck to fall heavily at fulllength, the crew and passengers around roaring with laughter at mydiscomfiture.
I was so angry and mortified that I jumped up, opened my greatjack-knife, and was rushing at the shark, when my uncle laid his handupon my arm.
"Don't be foolish, Nat, but take your lesson like a man. You will notdespise the strength of a shark for the future."
"Why, it was like touching a great steel spring, uncle," I said.
"If anything I should say that the backbone of a shark has more power init when set in motion than a steel spring, Nat," he said. "There, now,our friend is helpless, and we can examine him in peace."
For, after thrashing the deck with a series of tremendous blows with histail, the shark had his quietus given to him with a few blows of ahatchet, and as he lay upon the deck my uncle pointed out to me thepeculiarity of the monster's structure, and after we had examined hisnasty sharp triangular teeth in the apparently awkwardly placed mouth, Iwas shown how it was that a shark had such wonderful power of propellingitself through the water, for in place of having an ordinary fin-liketail, made up of so many bones with a membrane between, the shark'sspine is continued right along to the extremity of the upper curve ofits propeller, the other curve being comparatively small.
The flying-fish in the Red Sea have been described too often for it tobe necessary for me to say anything about the beauty of these fishyswallows, but we saw hundreds of them dart out of the sea, skim alongfor a distance, and then drop in again. Then there were glimpses had inthe deep clear blue--for that was the colour I found the Red Sea--offishes with scales of orange, vermilion, and gold, bright as thegorgeous sunsets that dyed sea and sky of such wondrous hues eveningafter evening before darkness fell all at once, and the great stars,brighter, bigger, and clearer than I had ever seen them before, turnedthe heavens into a vast ocean of gems.
Day and night seemed to me to follow one another with wonderfulrapidity, till one morning, as the steamer was panting and throbbing onits way, my uncle pointed to what looked like a low distant haze faraway on our right.
"Do you see those mountains, Nat?" he said.
"Mountains, uncle! Are these mountains?"
"Yes, my boy, in a land that I could find it in my heart to visit, onlythat is not quite wild enough for our purpose."
"What place is it, then?" I said, gazing eagerly at the faint distantline.
"Sumatra, Nat;" and as he spoke the long-shaped island, so familiar onthe maps at school, rose before my eyes, and with it came Java, Celebes,Borneo, and New Guinea, places that were before long to be the objectsof our quest.
Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas Page 16