The Battery and the Boiler, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best book club books .TXT] 📗

and went on to the platform to wait.

"I was pretty busy for the next quarter of an hour, for it was market day at the next town, but I noticed through the window that the old lady was standing on the platform, gazing steadily up at the sky.

"`Broxley--third class,' said a big farmer at that moment, with a head like one of his own turnips.

"I gave him his ticket, and for five minutes more I was kept pretty busy, when up came the train; in got the struggling crowd; whew! went the whistle, and away went the whole affair, leaving no one on the platform but the porter, and the old woman still staring up at the sky.

"`What's the matter, madam?' I asked.

"`Matter!' she exclaimed, `a pretty telegraph _yours_ is to be sure! wuss than the old carrier by a long way. Here 'ave I bin standin' for full 'alf-an-hour with my neck nigh broke, and there's no sign of it yet.'

"`No sign of what, madam?'

"`Of my brown paper passel, to be sure. Didn't you tell me, young man, that they said they'd send it by telegraph as soon as possible?'

"`No, madam,' I replied, `I told you they had telegraphed to say they would send it on as soon as possible--meaning, of course, by rail, for we have not yet discovered the method of sending parcels by telegraph-- though, no doubt, we shall in course of time. If you'll give me your address I'll send the parcel to you.'

"`Thank you, young man. Do,' she said, giving me an old envelope with her name on it. `Be sure you do. I don't mind the money much, but I couldn't a-bear to lose that muffler. It was _such_ a sweet thing, turned up with yaller, and a present too, which it isn't many of 'em comes my way.'

"So you see, Stumps, some people have queer notions about the powers of the telegraph."

"But did the old lady get the parcel all right?" asked Stumps, who was a sympathetic soul.

"Of course she did, and came over to the station next day to thank me, and offer me the bad shilling by way of reward. Of course I declined it with many expressions of gratitude."

While they were thus adding intellectual sauce to the material feast of breakfast, the rescued sailor awoke from his prolonged sleep, and stretched himself.

He was a huge, thick-set man, with a benign expression of countenance, but that phase of his character was somewhat concealed at the time by two black eyes, a swollen nose, a cut lip, and a torn cheek. Poor fellow, he had suffered severely at the hands of the pirates, and suddenly checked the stretch in which he was indulging with a sharp groan, or growl, as he sat up and pressed his hand to his side.

"Why, what's the matter with me, an' where am I?" he exclaimed, gazing round the cave, while a look of wonder gradually displaced the expression of pain.

"You're all right--rescued from the pirates at all events," answered Sam Shipton, rising from table and sitting down beside the seaman's couch.

"Thank God for that!" said the man earnestly, though with a troubled look; "but how did I escape--where are the rascals?--what--"

"There, now, don't excite yourself, my man; you're not quite yourself in body. Come, let me feel your pulse. Ah, slightly feverish--no wonder-- I'll tell you all about it soon, but at present you must be content merely to know that you are safe in the hands of friends, that you are in the pirates' cave, and that the pirates and their vessel are now at the bottom of the sea."

"That's hardly c'rect, Mr Shipton," murmured Slagg; "I would have said they was blow'd to hatoms."

The seaman turned and looked at the speaker with what would have been a twinkle if his swelled visage would have permitted, but the effort produced another spasm of pain.

"I must examine you, friend," said Sam; "you have been severely handled. Help me to strip him, Robin."

The poor man at once submitted.

"You're a doctor, sir, I suppose?" he asked.

"No," said Sam, "only an amateur; nevertheless I know what I'm about. You see, I think that every man in the world, whatever his station or profession, should be at least slightly acquainted with every subject under the sun, in connection with which he may be called on to act. In other words, he should know at least a little about surgery, and physic, and law, and carpentering, blacksmithing, building, cooking, riding, swimming, and--hallo! why, two of your ribs are broken, my man!"

"Sorry to hear it, sir, but not surprised, for I feels as if two or three o' my spines was broken also, and five or six o' my lungs bu'sted. You won't be able to mend 'em, I fear."

"Oh, yes, I shall," said Sam cheerily.

"Ah! that's well. I'd thowt that p'r'aps you wouldn't have the tools 'andy in these parts for splicin' of 'em."

"Fortunately no tools are required," returned Sam. "I'll soon put you right, but you'll have to lie still for some time. Here, Robin, go into the store-cave and fetch me a few yards of that white cotton, you remember, near the door. And, I say, mind you keep well clear of the powder."

When the cotton was brought, Sam tore it up into long strips, which he wound somewhat tightly round the sailor's huge chest.

"You see," he observed, as he applied the bandages, "broken ribs are not necessarily displaced, but the action of breathing separates the ends of them continually, so that they can't get a chance of re-uniting. All we have to do, therefore, is to prevent your taking a full breath, and this is accomplished by tying you up tight--so. Now, you can't breathe fully even if you would, and I'd recommend you not to try. By the way--what's your name?"

"Johnson, sir,--John Johnson."

"Well, Johnson, I'll give you something to eat and drink now, after which you'll have another sleep. To-morrow we'll have a chat on things in general."

"I say," asked Robin that night, as he and Sam stood star-gazing together beside a small fire which had been kindled outside the cavern-mouth for cooking purposes, "is it true that you have studied all the subjects you mentioned to Johnson this morning?"

"Quite true. I have not indeed studied them long or profoundly, but I have acquired sufficient knowledge of each to enable me to take intelligent action, as I did this morning, instead of standing helplessly by, or, what might be worse, making a blind attempt to do something on the chance that it might be the right thing, as once happened to myself when a bungling ignoramus gave me a glass of brandy to cure what he called mulligrumps, but what in truth turned out to be inflammation."

"But what think you of the saying that `a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' Sam."

"I think that, like most of the world's maxims, it is only partially, or relatively, true. If Little Knowledge claims the position and attempts to act the part of Great Knowledge, it becomes dangerous indeed; but if Little Knowledge walks modestly, and only takes action when none but Ignorance stands by, it is, in my opinion, neither dangerous nor liable to be destructive."

While they were speaking, little Letta came out of the cavern and ran towards them.

"It is like a dream of the Arabian Nights to meet such a little angel here," murmured Robin; "what a dreadful blow the loss of her must have been to her poor mother!"

"O! come to Johnson, please," she said, taking Sam by the hand with a very trustful look and manner.

"Why; he's not worse, is he?"

"O no! he has just awakened, and says he is _very_ much better, and _so_ peckish. What does he mean by that?"

"Peckish, my dear, is hungry," explained Robin, as they went into the cave together.

They found that Johnson was not only peckish but curious, and thirsting for information as well as meat and drink. As his pulse was pronounced by Dr Shipton to be all right, he was gratified with a hearty supper, a long pull at the tankard of sparkling water, and a good deal of information and small-talk about the pirates, the wreck of the Triton, and the science of electricity.

"But you have not told us yet," said Sam, "how it was that you came to fail into the hands of the pirates."

"I can soon tell 'ee that," said the seaman, turning slowly on his couch.

"Lie still, now, you must not move," said Sam, remonstratively.

"But that not movin', doctor, is wuss than downright pain, by a long way. Hows'ever, I s'pose I must obey orders--anyhow you've got the whip hand o' me just now. Well, as I was sayin', the yarn ain't a long 'un. I sailed from the port o' Lun'on in a tea-clipper, of which I was the cook; got out to Hong-Kong all right, shipped a cargo, and off again for old England. We hadn't got far when a most horrible gale blew us far out of our course. When it fell calm, soon arter, we was boarded by a pirate. Our captain fought like a hero, but it warn't of no use. They was too many for us; most of my shipmates was killed, and I was knocked flat on the deck from behind with a hand-spike. On recoverin', I found myself in the ship's hold, bound hand and futt, among a lot of unfortunits like myself, most of 'em bein' Chinese and Malays. The reptiles untied my hands and set me to an oar. They thrashed us all unmercifully to make us work hard, and killed the weak ones to be rid of 'em. At last we came to an anchor, as I knew by the rattlin' o' the cables, though, bein' below, I couldn't see where we was. Then I heard the boats got out, an' all the crew went ashore, as I guessed, except the guard left to watch us.

"That night I dreamed a deal about bein' free, an' about former voyages--specially one when I was wrecked in the Atlantic, an' our good ship, the Seahorse, went down in latitude--"

"The Seahorse!" echoed Robin, with an earnest look at the sailor; "was she an emigrant ship?"

"Ay, that's just what she was."

"Was she lost in the year 1850?" continued Robin, with increasing excitement.

"Jus' so, my lad."

"And you were cook?"

"You've hit the nail fair on the head," replied the sailor, with a look of surprise.

"Well, now, that _is_ most remarkable," said Robin, "for I was born on board of that very ship."

"You _don't_ mean it," said Johnson, looking eagerly at our hero. "Was you really the babby as was born to that poor miserable sea-sick gentleman, Mr Wright--you'll excuse my sayin' so--in the middle of a thunder-clap an' a flash o' lightnin' as would have split our main-mast an' sent us to the bottom, along wi' the ship, if it hadn't bin for the noo lightnin' conductor that Mr Harris, the inventor, indooced our skipper to put up!"

"Yes, I am that very baby," said Robin, "and although,