Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader, R. M. Ballantyne [best large ereader .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“There he comes,” cried Corrie, eagerly.
“Eh!” exclaimed Poopy, in alarm.
“Who? where?” inquired Alice, who thought that the boy referred to some one who had unexpectedly appeared on the scene.
“I saw him wink with his left eye—look!” All three suspended their labour of love, and, stretching forward their heads, gazed with breathless anxiety at the clay-coloured face of Jo.
“I must have been mistaken,” said Corrie, shaking his head.
“Go at him agin,” cried Poopy, recommencing her work on the right arm with so much energy that it seemed marvellous how she escaped skinning that limb from fingers to shoulder.
Poor Alice did her best, but her soft little hands had not much effect on the huge mass of brown flesh they manipulated.
“There he comes again!” shouted Corrie. Once more there was an abrupt pause in the process, and the three heads were bent eagerly forward watching for symptoms of returning life. Corrie was right. The seaman’s left eye quivered for a moment, causing the hearts of the three children to beat high with hope. Presently the other eye also quivered; then the broad chest rose almost imperceptibly, and a faint sigh came feebly and broken from the cold blue lips.
To say that the three children were delighted at this would be to give but a feeble idea of the state of their feelings. Corrie had, even in the short time yet afforded him of knowing Bumpus, entertained for him feelings of the deepest admiration and love. Alice and Poopy, out of sheer sympathy, had fallen in love with him too, at first sight, so that his horrible death, (as they had supposed,) coupled with his unexpected restoration and revival through their unaided exertions, drew them still closer to him, and created within them a sort of feeling that he must, in common reason and justice, regard himself as their special property in all future time. When, therefore, they saw him wink and heard him sigh, the gush of emotion that filled their respective bosoms was quite overpowering. Corrie gasped in his effort not to break down; Alice wept with silent joy as she continued to chafe the man’s limbs; and Poopy went off into a violent fit of hysterical laughter, in which her “hee, hees!” resounded with terrible shrillness among the surrounding cliffs.
“Now, then, let’s to work again with a will,” said Corrie; “what d’ye say to try punching him?”
This question he put gravely, and with the uncertain air of a man who feels that he is treading on new and possibly dangerous ground.
“What is punching?” inquired Alice.
“Why, that,” replied the boy, giving a practical and by no means gentle illustration on his own fat thigh.
“Wouldn’t it hurt him?” said Alice, dubiously.
“Hurt him! hurt the Grampus!” cried Corrie, with a look of surprise, “you might as well talk of hurting a hippopotamus. Come, I’ll try.”
Accordingly, Corrie tried. He began to bake the seaman, as it were, with his fists. As the process went on he warmed to the work, and did it so energetically, in his mingled anxiety and hope, that it assumed the character of hitting rather than punching—to the dismay of Alice, who thought it impossible that any human being could stand such dreadful treatment.
Whether it was to this process, or to the action of nature, or to the combined efforts of nature and his friends, that Bumpus owed his recovery, we cannot pretend to say; but certain it is that, on Corrie making a severer dab than usual into the pit of the seaman’s stomach, he gave a gasp and a sneeze, the latter of which almost overturned Poopy, who chanced to be gazing wildly into his countenance at the moment. At the same time he involuntarily threw up his right arm, and fetched Corrie such a tremendous backhander on the chest that our young hero was laid flat on his back—half stunned by the violence of his fall, yet shouting with delight that his rugged friend still lived to strike another blow.
Having achieved this easy though unintentional victory, Bumpus sighed again, shook his legs in the air, and sat up, gazing before him with a bewildered air, and gasping from time to time in a quiet way.
“Wot’s to do?” were the first words with which the restored seaman greeted his friends.
“Hurrah!” screamed Corrie, his visage blazing with delight, as he danced in front of him.
“Werry good,” said Bumpus, whose intellects were not yet thoroughly restored, “try it again.”
“Oh! how cold your cheeks are,” said Alice, placing her hands on them, and chafing them gently; then, perceiving that she did not communicate much warmth in that way, she placed her own fair soft cheek against that of the sailor. Suddenly throwing both arms round his neck, she hugged him, and burst into tears.
Bumpus was somewhat taken aback by this unexpected explosion, but, being an affectionate man as well as a rugged one, he had no objection whatever to the peculiar treatment. He allowed the child to sob on his neck as long as she chose, while Corrie stood by with his hands in his pockets, sailor-fashion, and looked on admiringly. As for Poopy, she sat down on a rock a short way off, and began to smile and talk to herself in a manner so utterly idiotical that an ignorant observer would certainly have judged her to be insane.
They were thus agreeably employed when an event occurred which changed the current of their thoughts, and led to consequences of a somewhat serious nature. This event, however, was in itself insignificant. It was nothing more than the sudden appearance of a wild-pig among the bushes close at hand.
When the wild-pig, referred to in the last chapter, was first observed, it was standing on the margin of a thicket, from which it had just issued, gazing, with the profoundly philosophical aspect peculiar to that animal, at our four friends, and seeming to entertain doubts as to the propriety of beating an immediate retreat.
Before it had made up its mind on this point, Corrie’s eye alighted on it.
“Hist!” exclaimed he, with a gesture of caution to his companions. “Look there! we’ve had nothing to eat for an awful time; nothing since breakfast on Sunday morning. I feel as if my interior had been amputated. Oh! what a jolly roast that fellow would make if we could only kill him.”
“Wot’s in the pistol?” inquired Bumpus, pointing to the weapon which Corrie had stuck ostentatiously into his belt.
“Nothin’,” answered the boy. “I fired the last charge I had into the face of a savage.”
“Fling it at him,” suggested Bumpus, getting cautiously up. “Here, hand it to me. I’ve seed a heavy horse-pistol like that do great execution when well aimed by a stout arm.”
The pig seemed to have an intuitive perception that danger was approaching, for it turned abruptly round just as the missile left the seaman’s hand, and received the butt with full force close to the root of its tail.
A pig’s tendency to shriek on the receipt of the slightest injury is well known. It is therefore not to be wondered at, that this pig went off into the bushes under cover of a series of yells so terrific that they might have been heard for miles round.
“I’ll after him,” cried Bumpus, catching up a large stone, and leaping forward a few paces almost as actively as if nothing had happened to him.
“Hurrah!” shouted Corrie, “I’ll go too.”
“Hold on,” cried Bumpus, stopping suddenly.
“Why?” inquired the boy.
“’Cause you must stop an’ take care of the gals. It won’t do to leave ’em alone again, you know, Corrie.”
This remark was accompanied with an exceedingly huge wink full of deep meaning, which Corrie found it convenient not to notice, as he observed, gravely—
“Ah! true. One of us must remain with ’em, poor helpless things—so—so you had better go after the squeaker.”
“All right,” said Bumpus, with a broad grin—“Hallo! why, here’s a spear that must ha’ bin dropt by one o’ them savages. That’s a piece o’ good luck anyhow, as the man said when he fund the fi’ pun’ note. Now, then, keep an eye on them gals, lad, and I’ll be back as soon as ever I can; though I does feel rather stiffish. My old timbers ain’t used to such deep divin’, d’ye see.”
Bumpus entered the thicket as he spoke, and Corrie returned to console the girls, with the feeling and the air of a man whose bosom is filled with a stern resolve to die, if need be, in the discharge of an important duty.
Now, the yell of this particular pig reached other ears besides those of the party whose doings we have attempted to describe. It rang in those of the pirates, who had been sent ashore to hide, like the scream of a steam-whistle, in consequence of their being close at hand, and it sounded like a faint cry in those of Henry Stuart and the missionary, who, with their party, were a long way off, slowly tracing the footsteps of the lost Alice, to which they had been guided by the keen scent of that animated scrap of door-mat, Toozle. The effect on both parties was powerful, but not similar. The pirates, supposing that a band of savages were near them, lay close and did not venture forth until a prolonged silence and strong curiosity tempted them to creep, with slow movements and extreme caution, towards the place whence the sounds had proceeded.
Mr Mason and Henry, on the other hand, stopped and listened with intense earnestness, expecting, yet fearing, a recurrence of the cry, and then sprang forward with their party, under the belief that they had heard the voice of Alice calling for help.
Meanwhile, Bumpus toiled up the slopes of the mountain, keeping the pig well in view, for that animal having been somewhat injured by the blow from the pistol, could not travel at its ordinary speed. Indeed, Jo would have speedily overtaken it, but for the shaky condition of his own body after such a long fast and such a series of violent shocks, as well mental as physical.
Having gained the summit of a hill, the pig, much exhausted, sat down on its hams, and gazed pensively at the ground. Bumpus took advantage of the fact, and also sat down on a stone to rest.
“Wot a brute it is,” said he to himself, “I’ll circumvent it yet, though.”
Presently, he rose and made as if he had abandoned the chase, and were about to return the way he had come; but, when he had effectually concealed himself from the view of the pig, he made a wide détour, and, coming out suddenly at a spot higher up the mountain, charged down upon the unsuspecting animal with a yell that would have done credit to itself.
The pig echoed the yell, and rushed down the hill towards the cliffs, closely followed by the hardy seaman, who, in the ardour of the chase, forgot or ignored his aches and pains, and ran like a greyhound, his hair streaming in the wind, his eyes blazing with excitement, and the spear ready poised for a fatal dart. Altogether, he was so wild and strong in appearance, and so furious in his onset, that it was impossible to believe he had been half dead little more than an hour before, but then, as we have before remarked, Bumpus was hard to kill!
For nearly half an hour did the hungry seaman keep up the
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