CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
Carey was not long in communicating to the doctor all he had heard fromBostock, and his words revived his companion wonderfully.
"Capital!" he said. "The fact of our being unarmed and this scoundrelkeeping all the weapons out of our reach half maddened me."
"Yes, wasn't it horrid?" said Carey. "I felt better directly, and, doyou know, I don't think we have half so much to fear now from theblacks. I don't feel a bit afraid of them. I can make them do just asI like; so can Bob."
"Perhaps so, and if we were alone we could make them our obedientservants. They look up to the whites as superior beings, but they arenot to be trusted, my boy. This Mallam has had them under his thumb foryears, and as you must have seen, a few sharp orders from him bring outtheir savage instincts, their faces change, their eyes look full offerocity, and if their white chief wished it they would kill us allwithout compunction."
"And cook and eat us afterwards without salt?" said the boy, merrily.
"You laugh," replied the doctor, "but it is a horrible fact, my boy; andif we knew all that has taken place in connection with this man's ruleover them, we should have some blood-curdling things to dwell upon."
"I don't feel afraid," said Carey, coolly. "Of course, I should if itcame to such a state of affairs as you hint at. But if it came to theworst, I should jump overboard and try to swim ashore."
"To be taken by a shark or a crocodile?"
"Well, that would be a more natural way of coming to one's end, sir.But, pooh! we're not going to be beaten, doctor. We must get Mr DanMallam--Old King Cole, Bob calls him--shut up below somewhere and out ofsight of the blacks. They'd obey us then, and we should be all right.Why, we're not going to be afraid of one man."
"One man?" said the doctor.
"Yes, one man. He's only one man when he's alone. I felt yesterdaythat we had twenty-one enemies. Now I feel that we've only one. Bobsays we must wait."
"Yes, it is good advice," replied the doctor, "and we will wait. Carey,my lad, we must bend to circumstances till our chance comes. There, Ihave been behaving in a poor, cowardly way."
"Oh, nonsense, sir!"
"I have, Carey, and there is no disguising it; but I am going to pluckup now. Let the scoundrel go on thinking we are submitting and are asmuch his servant as the blacks are."
"Till the right time comes, sir, and he wakes up to the fact that he'sour prisoner. I say, if a ship came in sight and saw us we could handhim over and he'd be taken right off and treated as a criminal."
"Exactly. It seemed very galling to see him seize the pearls."
"Yes," said Carey, "but let him think they're his, and the ship, and allbelow. We know better."
This was a trifling bit of conversation, but from that hour hope grewstronger in the breasts of the three oddly made prisoners and slaves ofsuch a king. Their semi-captivity seemed more bearable, and it showedin their looks and actions, the beachcomber noting it and showing a grimkind of satisfaction.
"That's right," he said. "Glad to see you are all settling down andmaking the best of it. It's no use to go kicking against stone walls orrocks. Be good boys, and I won't be very hard on you. You'll eat anddrink your food better, and instead o' grizzling you'll enjoy yourselvesand get nice and fat. My pack, too, will like you all the better. Idon't think I shall let 'em have that ugly chap Bostock, though; hecooks too well."
But Carey took matters, according to the doctor's ideas, too easily--toofreely. He did not shrink from speaking out and taking liberties withhis position. It was as if he had forgotten that he was a prisoner, andhe pretty well did as he liked.
"Here, what are you after, youngster? Where are you going?"
"Along with the pack to get cocoanuts," said Carey, coolly.
"I never told you," growled the old fellow, fiercely.
"No, but I want to see them get the nuts down," said Carey,nonchalantly, and he went.
It was the same when a party of the blacks went fishing, which wasnearly every day, so that there was always an ample supply, and the boyreturned flushed and brown, full of the adventures he had had.
Black Jack now took to heading the fishing expeditions, and alwayslooked after Carey at starting time, grinning and making signssuggestive of hauling up the fish and hitting them over the heads with anulla-nulla, while the crew of the outrigger canoe always greeted theboy with a grin of satisfaction.
"They are all awfully civil to me now," said Carey to Bostock, "but Ithink it's a good deal due to the ticky-ticky. I say, Bob, how longwill the molasses last?"
"Oh, some time yet, sir."
"But when the last jar's eaten?"
"Then you must try the pickles, sir. And when that's done, as it usedto say on a big picture on the walls in London, `If you like thepickles, try the sauce.' There's no end o' bottles o' sauce."
"Are there? Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir. There's a big consignment, as they call it, sent from Londonto Brisbane. One part o' the hold's chock full o' cases. Why, there'sa lot o' sugar things too. Oh, we shall find enough to keep thembeggars going for a long time yet."
Meantime the great tubs had all been emptied with more or lesssatisfactory results, and re-filling began with the accompanyingstacking of the shells. The pearls were stowed away in cigar boxes,which were emptied for the purpose, the beachcomber now taking tosmoking some of those turned out, and giving an abundance to Carey, whotook them eagerly, always carrying several in his pocket.
"Surely you are not going to smoke those, my boy?" said the doctor, wholooked quite aghast. "Wait a few years before you try anything of thatkind."
"Why?" said the boy, with an arch look. "Because if you begin now youwill most likely be laying up a store of trouble for the future in theshape of a disordered digestion, which may hang about you all yourlife."
"I'm not going to smoke them," said Carey, laughing. "Look here, I rolleach one up tight in a bit of paper, and then cut it with a sharp knifeinto six, ready to give the black fellows if they behave themselves.They'll do anything for me for a bit of tobacco."
"But don't they ever try to take it away from you?"
"Not now. They tried snatching once or twice, but I gave the one whodid a good sharp crack, and they left it off, for I'm always fair tothem."
"A dangerous game to play."
"Oh, no. The others always laugh at the one who's hit. They don't seemto mind taking a crack from me."
Those fishing trips were an intense pleasure to Carey, for there was somuch that was novel. Now fish with scales as brilliant as the feathersof humming-birds would be caught; now the blacks would be warning theircompanions to beware of the black and yellow or yellow snakes.
"Mumkull--kill a fellow," Black Jack said, and to emphasise his meaninghe put out a hand in the water towards one of the basking serpents,snatched it back as if bitten, and went through a regular pantomimeindicative of his sufferings. First he drew up one leg, then the other,threw himself on his back in the bottom of the canoe, kicked out, threwhis arms in the air, straightened himself out, rolled over, and then,with a wonderful display of strength, curved his spine and sprang overback again, repeating the performance, which was wonderfully like theflopping of a freshly caught roach in a punt, even to the beating of thetail, which was here represented by the man's legs. By degrees thisgrew more slow; then there was a flap at intervals, finishing with oneheavy rap, and he lay quite still as if dead.
"Dat a way," he cried, raising his head and grinning hugely. "Mumkull--kill a fellow."
But Carey's greatest treats were upon the hunting expeditions made bythe beachcomber's blacks ashore to obtain fresh meat in the way of adelicacy or two for their chief and something substantial forthemselves.
One day Carey was gazing rather disconsolately at the shore andwondering when the time would come for him and his companions to be freeagain, when Black Jack bounded to his side, making the boy start round,to find the man in a menacing attitu
de, his teeth bare, eyes wide opendisplaying scarcely anything but the whites, for he was squinting sohorribly that his pupils had disappeared behind his thick nose, whilethe club he held was quivering as if he were about to strike. Thesuddenness of the approach startled Carey for the moment, and he leapedback, but the reaction came as quickly, and with doubled fist he rushedat the black; but the latter was too quick, leaping aside, and Carey'ssecond attack, which took the form of a flying kick, was alsounsuccessful.
Black Jack's face was now covered with a series of good-temperedwrinkles.
"Come 'long," he cried. "Kedge bird--wallaby. Be ticky-ticky, up atree."
"Be ticky-ticky?" said the boy, wonderingly.
"Ess. Come 'long; be ticky-ticky. Buzz-zz-uzz," he went, with awonderfully good imitation of the whirr of an insect's wings, while hemade his hand describe the dartings to and fro.
"Big fly so," he cried, and drawing his boomerang from the hair girdle,he took a few steps, whirled it a moment or two, and then hurled ittowards the shore. "Buzz--hum!" he cried, and then he stood grinningwith delight at the boy's admiration of the gyrations made by thecurious implement.
At the first throw it seemed to Carey that it would drop as soon as theforce was exhausted into the sea, where the hard wood must cause it tosink. But nothing of the kind; it went skimming over the water likesome gigantic insect, and at last made a graceful curve, rose up on highquivering and fluttering, and came back till it was over the deck, andthen came twirling down.
"Big tree, ticky-ticky, fly dat how."
"Oh, I see; fly ticky-ticky," cried Carey. "Honey?"
"Good ticky-ticky," said the black, licking his fingers and smacking hislips. "Come 'long."
"Yes, I'll come," cried the boy, and the next minute he was over theside and in the boat, where half-a-dozen more of the blacks were waitingand received him with a frantic shout of delight, flourishing theirpaddles, which they plunged into the smooth water of the lagoon as soonas Black Jack had dropped to his place; and away they went, with thelatter standing up beside Carey.
As they were passing round the bows, Bostock's head suddenly appearedover the side, and at a sign from the boy the blacks ceased rowing.
"Where away, lad?" said the old sailor.
"Ashore, hunting wallabies or something."
"I say, young gentleman, is it safe to go alone with those chaps?"
"Oh, yes; there's nothing to mind. Haven't I been fishing with 'em lotsof times?"
"Yes, but that was on the water, my lad," said Bostock, shaking hishead.
"Bob--Bob, come along; kedge wallaby--snakum--ticky-ticky."
"Who's to do the cooking if I do?" growled Bostock.
"Cookie, come kedge ticky-ticky."
"No. I say, my lad, keep your weather eye open."
"Both of them, Bob. I'll take care."
The paddles were plunged in again, and the boat glided onward.
"I don't half like it," muttered Bostock. "That there boy's toowentersome. S'pose they got hungry--they most always are--and took itinto their heads to make a fire. Ugh! They aren't to be trusted, but Ib'leeve they all like him and would be precious sorry when they got backand Old King Cole asked where he was. There'd be a row and a bit o'shooting, I dessay, for it's amazing, that it is, amazing, the way theold vagabone has took to our lad. But I don't like his going off with'em, and with nothing better than a bit of a toothpick of a knife.Wouldn't be long before he got hold of a club, though, I know."
Bostock went back to his galley shaking his head, and at the same timeCarey was mentally shaking his own.
"An old stupid," he said. "I wish he hadn't said that. Just as if itwas likely that Black Jack or either of the others would hurt me withoutOld King Cole was there to say `Css!' to them and hound them on.Wouldn't hurt me, would you, Black Jack?" he said aloud.
"Hey? Wood hurt um?" cried the man, and he pulled the boy on one side,dropped on his knees, and began to feel about the bottom of the canoewith his hand. "No hurt."
"No; all right now," said Carey, smiling. "Here, Jackum, I want tolearn to throw the boomerang. Give me hold."
The boy made a snatch at the crescent-moon-like weapon, and got hold;but the black seized it too, shouting, "No, no, no!" and his companionsbegan to shout what sounded like a protest.
"No, no throw. Go bottom."
"I should make it come back."
The black grinned knowingly.
"Jackum show soon. Jackum fro."
He sent the strange weapon flying on before them, and cleverly caught itas it returned; but then he stuck it in his girdle again, shaking hishead.
"Go bottom," he said.
Carey was disappointed, but his attention was taken up directly bysomething more exciting, for as the canoe glided along, with theoutrigger literally skipping over the water, the boy suddenly becameconscious of what seemed for the moment like another canoe of nearly thesame size, sunk beneath the surface and gliding along at the same speed.
For the moment he thought it must be the canoe's shadow somehow castbeside them, but the next moment he grasped the fact that it was a greatfish, probably a shark, which had come in through the opening with thelast high tide, and was now on the prowl.
There was no doubt about it, for the blacks had seen it, and theylaughed as they saw their passenger shrink to the other side and leanover towards the outrigger.
The next moment Jackum drew his attention with a touch, and began makinghideous grimaces at the creature, while the others began to shout andwere apparently calling it every opprobrious name that their limitedvocabulary supplied.
But the monster, which must have been some fourteen feet long, only rosea little so that his black triangular fin appeared above the surface.
Jackum grinned, stooped, and picked up one of a bundle of spears whichlay along at the side, and handed it to the boy, signing to him to standup in the boat.
It was not much of a weapon, being only a straight bamboo sapling withan ill-made point hardened in the fire.
"Gib big poke," cried the black.
"If I don't they'll think I'm afraid," thought Carey; so he seized thespear, feeling not the slightest inclination for his task, and drove thepoint down on the shark's back.
It was an unlucky stroke, for, instead of penetrating as intended, itglided over the slimy skin, while, overbalancing himself in consequenceof meeting with no resistance, Carey to his horror found himselffollowing his stroke, and he would have plunged overboard had not amuscular black arm darted like a great snake about his waist and pluckedhim back. For a moment or two the boy gasped, but he recovered himselfdirectly.
"Shake hands, Jackum. Thankye."
The black grinned, and took the extended hand for a few seconds.
"Let's try again," said Carey; but the shark had sunk down out of sight.
"Ticklum," said the black, grinning. "Come soon."
Carey was disappointed, for he wanted to redeem his character, though itwas not an easy task to try and emulate the blacks with their ownweapons. But Jackum was right; it was not long before the great fishre-appeared, now on the other side of the canoe, rising slowly till itsfin was above water, its intention being apparently to pick one of thepaddlers out for a meal.
His appearance there, however, was not approved of, the blacks by theiractions showing that they considered it highly probable that theirvisitor would get entangled with the bamboos of the outrigger andcapsize the boat.
Jackum took the lead by snatching the spear from Carey, evidentlyconsidering that the position required skilled instead of amateurmanipulation; and, as his fellows turned their paddles into choppers andstruck heavily at the shark's back, Jackum drove his spear down with allhis might.
It went home in spite of its clumsy make and miserable point, for in amoment it was twitched out of the strong hands that held it, the watercame flying in a shower over Carey, consequent upon a tremendous blowdelivered by the fish's tail; then there was a violent eddy at thebo
at's side, a great shovel-shaped head rose, and the monster shot outof the water, rising several feet and falling with a crash across themain boom of the outrigger, taking it down lower and lower, while Careyclung to the other side of the boat. The water came creeping in overthe lower side, and they would, he felt, be taken down and lie at themercy of the enemy the blacks had tried to destroy.
In rushed the water faster and faster, and Carey looked towards theshore to see how far it was to swim, when all at once the weight glidedoff the great bamboo, which rose quickly, the boat was level again, buthalf full of water, and the blacks chattered and grinned with delight,as they began shovelling the water out on both sides with their paddles.
Jackum used his hands, but stopped short directly after to point.
"Tickum, tickum. Mumkull," he cried, and Carey made out the spear-shaftperforming some strange gyrations some twenty yards away, before it oncemore disappeared.
As Carey owned afterwards to the doctor and Bostock, he still felt alittle white, and his heart was beating heavily. But it calmed downrapidly as he felt that the worst that was to happen to him was to feelhis legs wet until the sun had dried his trousers and boots, while theblacks chattered away, taking it as an every-day occurrence, rapidlyemptying the boat, and once more in high glee paddling hard for theshore, where the great enjoyments of the day were to begin.
King o' the Beach: A Tropic Tale Page 21