Told in the East, Talbot Mundy [crime books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Talbot Mundy
Book online «Told in the East, Talbot Mundy [crime books to read .txt] 📗». Author Talbot Mundy
“I see. Well? One of the other men might take him on the chain. A good-conduct man, for instance.”
Crothers tugged at the chain, and the unhappy dog drew away toward the scuppers with all his remaining strength.
“He's cussed about the chain, sir—apt to drag on it and try to chaw it through. Besides, sir, when a dawg's sick, he's like a man—same as me an' you; he likes to 'ave 'is partic'lar pals with 'im. Now, that dawg's fond o' me an' Byng.'
“I see. But supposing exercise isn't what he wants after all? Suppose he needs a long rest and lots of sleep? How about that?”
The argument had reached a crisis, and Curley realized it. Joking or not, when the commander of a ship takes too long in reaching a decision he generally does not reach a favorable one. The leash was tugged again, this time with some severity. The martyred Scamp was drawn on his protesting haunches close to the official table, that the commander might have a better view of his distress. And then the expected happened—voluminously.
Curley stood with an expression of wooden-headed, abject innocence on his big, broad face, and looked straight in front of him.
“He certainly is sick, sir,” he remarked.
“Sick. Good heavens! The dog's turning himself inside out! That's the last time a thing like this happens; he's the last dog I ever take on a cruise. Take him away at once! Bosun—call some one to wipe up that disgusting mess!”
“Take him ashore, did you say, sir?”
“Take him out of this! Take him anywhere you like! Yes, take him ashore and lose him—feed him to the sharks—give him to the Arabs—take him away, that's all!”
“Me and Byng, sir?”
“Yes, you and Byng! Did you hear me tell you to take him away?”
“Very good, sir; thank you!”
Curley Crothers saluted without the vestige of a smile, and hurried off before the dog could show too early signs of recovering health and strength or the commander could change his mind.
“Come on, Scamp,” he whispered. “That was nothing but a temporary disaccommodation to your tummy, doglums; we'll soon have you to rights again.”
He dived into the fo'castle with the dog behind him, and there were those who noticed that the terrier's whip-like tail no longer hugged his stomach, but was waving to the world at large.
And thirty minutes later, as the Puncher's launch put off with Curley and Joe Byng comfortably seated in the stern, it was obvious to any one who cared to look that Scamp was the happiest and healthiest terrier in Asia.
“Now, I wonder what they did to him,” mused the Puncher's commander, watching from beneath his awning. “Those two men live up to the name they brought aboard! I believe they'd find means and a good excuse for walking to windward of a First Sea Lord!”
III.
Now an Arab would as soon allow a dog to lick his face as he would think of eating pork in public with his women folk; so the bearded, hook-nosed believers in the Prophet who looked down from the rock wall that lines one side of Adra knew what to think of Curley and his friend Joe Byng long before either of them realized that they were being watched.
Arrayed from head to ankles in spotless white, their black boots looking blacker by comparison, they proceeded in the general direction of the distant village, with the order and decorum of sea lords descending on a dockyard for inspection purposes. The trackless sand proved hot and sharp; the dog proved in poor condition from the voyage and the morning's incidental martyrdom, and Byng was generous-hearted. He picked up the dog and carried him; and Scamp displayed his gratitude in customary canine way.
The comments of the watching Arabs would not fit into any story in the world, and it is quite as well that Crothers and Joe Byng did not hear them and could not have translated them, for in the other case trouble would have started even sooner than it did. As it was, they tumbled and maneuvered over unresisting sand through almost tangible stench to where a gap in the ragged wall did duty as a gate. As they came nearer, a banner with the star and crescent was displayed from the wall-top, but no other sign was given that their coming was observed.
It was not until they had debouched (as Crothers termed it) to their half-right front and had taken to a narrow one-man track that ran below the wall that any over attention was paid them. Suddenly a hook-nosed Asiatic gentleman emerged through the once-was gateway—a picture of a Bible shepherd but for the long-barreled gun he carried instead of crook—a brown shadow against brown masonry. He challenged them in Arabic, and Curley Crothers answered him in Queen Victoria's English that all was well.
“Everything in the garden's lovely!” he asserted, in a deep-sea sing-song. “How's yourself?”
The man repeated whatever he had said before, this time with a gesture of impatience.
“Friend!” roared Byng and Curley both together. And the bull terrier took the joint yell for a war cry, or a bunting call, or possibly the herald's overture that summons bull pups to Valhalla. He was bred right and British Navy trained and his was not to reason why. He waited for no second invitation, but lit out from Byng's arms like a streak—a whip-tail, snow-white streak—for where the Arab's hard lean legs shone shiny-brown below his fluttering brown raiment.
“Come back, there!” yelled both keepers in excited unison, but they called too late.
Each grabbed for the chain too late. Their heads and shoulders cannoned and they fell together on the hot, dirty sand while Scamp and the Arab made each other's intimate acquaintance in a whirl of ripping cloth and legs and teeth and blasphemy.
That in itself was bad enough, and good enough excuse if such were wanted for war between the Shadow of God Upon Earth and England's distant Queen; but there was worse to follow.
One does not laugh, between certain parallels, unless the ultimate degree of insult is intended. And Curley Crothers and Joe Byng did laugh. They held their ribs and laughed until their muscles ached and their strong men's strength oozed out of them.
They were laughing when they grabbed the dog at last and pulled him off. They laughed as they set the Arab on his feet and gave him back his gun; and they laughed at him with Christian and mannerly good grace when he spat at them in awful frenzy until the spittle matted in his beard. And,
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