The Red Eric, Robert Michael Ballantyne [free ebook novel txt] 📗

said it, and then burst into tears.

Aunt Jane at that moment was venturing to swallow her first mouthful of tea, so she gulped and choked, and Aunt Martha spent the next five minutes in violently beating the poor creature's back, as if she deemed choking a serious offence which merited severe punishment. As for the captain, that unfeeling monster went on grinning from ear to ear, and eating a heavy breakfast, as if nothing had happened. But a close observer might have noticed a curious process going on at the starboard side of his weather-beaten nose.

In one of his many desperate encounters with whales, Captain Dunning had had the end of a harpoon thrust accidentally into the prominent member of his face just above the bridge. A permanent little hole was the result, and on the morning of which we write, a drop of water got into that hole continually, and when it rolled out--which it did about once every two minutes--and fell into the captain's tea-cup, it was speedily replaced by another drop, which trickled into the depths of that small cavern on the starboard side of the captain's nose. We don't pretend to account for that curious phenomenon. We merely record the fact.

While the breakfast party were yet in this April mood, a knock was heard at the outer door.

"Visitors!" said Martha, with a look that would have led a stranger to suppose that she held visitors in much the same estimation as tax-gatherers.

"How awkward!" exclaimed Aunt Jane.

"Send 'em away, girl," cried the captain. "We're all engaged. Can't see any one to-day."

In a moment the servant-girl returned.

"He says he _must_ see you."

"See who?" cried the captain.

"See _you_, sir."

"Must he; then he shan't. Tell him that."

"Please, sir, he says he won't go away."

"Won't he?"

As he said this the captain set his teeth, clenched his fists, and darted out of the room.

"Oh! George! Stop him! do stop him. He's _so_ violent! He'll do something dreadful!" said Aunt Martha.

"Will no one call out murder?" groaned Aunt Jane, with a shudder.

As no one, however, ventured to check Captain Dunning, he reached the door, and confronted a rough, big, burly sailor, who stood outside with a free-and-easy expression of countenance, and his hands in his trousers pockets.

"Why don't you go away when you're told, eh?" shouted the captain.

"'Cause I won't," answered the man coolly.

The captain stepped close up, but the sailor stood his ground and grinned.

"Now, my lad, if you don't up anchor and make sail right away, I'll knock in your daylights."

"No, you won't do nothin' o' the kind, old gen'lem'n; but you'll double-reef your temper, and listen to wot I've got to say; for it's very partikler, an' won't keep long without spilin'."

"What have you got to say, then?" said the captain, becoming interested, but still feeling nettled at the interruption.

"Can't tell you here."

"Why not?"

"Never mind; but put on your sky-scraper, and come down with me to the grog-shop wot I frequents, and I'll tell ye."

"I'll do nothing of the sort; be off," cried the captain, preparing to slam the door.

"Oh! it's all the same to me, in coorse, but I rather think if ye know'd that it's 'bout the _Termagant_, and that 'ere whale wot--but it don't matter. Good-mornin'."

"Stay," cried the captain, as the last words fell on his ears.

"Have you really anything to say to me about that ship?"

"In coorse I has."

"Won't you come in and say it here?"

"Not by no means. You must come down to the grog-shop with _me_."

"Well, I'll go."

So saying the captain ran back to the parlour; said, in hurried tones, that he had to go out on matters of importance, but would be back to dine at five, and putting on his hat, left the cottage in company with the strange sailor.


CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.


CAPTAIN DUNNING ASTONISHES THE STRANGER--SURPRISING NEWS, AND DESPERATE RESOLVES.

Still keeping his hands in his pockets and the free-and-easy expression on his countenance, the sailor swaggered through the streets of the town with Captain Dunning at his side, until he arrived at a very dirty little street, near the harbour, the chief characteristics of which were noise, compound smells, and little shops with sea-stores hung out in front. At the farther end of this street the sailor paused before a small public-house.

"Here we are," said he; "this is the place w'ere I puts up w'en I'm ashore--w'ich ain't often--that's a fact. After you, sir."

The captain hesitated.

"You ain't afraid, air you?" asked the sailor, in an incredulous tone.

"No, I'm not, my man; but I have an objection to enter a public-house, unless I cannot help it. Have you had a glass this morning?"

The sailor looked puzzled, as if he did not see very clearly what the question had to do with the captain's difficulty.

"Well, for the matter o' that, I've had three glasses this mornin'."

"Then I suppose you have no objection to try a glass of my favourite tipple, have you?"

The man smiled, and wiping his mouth with the cuff of his jacket, as if he expected the captain was, then and there, about to hand him a glass of the tipple referred to, said--

"No objection wotsomediver."

"Then follow me; I'll take you to the place where _I_ put up sometimes when I'm ashore. It's not far off."

Five minutes sufficed to transport them from the dirty little street near the harbour to the back-parlour of the identical coffee-house in which the captain was first introduced to the reader. Here, having whispered something to the waiter, he proceeded to question his companion on the mysterious business for which he had brought him there.

"Couldn't we have the tipple first?" suggested the sailor.

"It will be here directly. Have you breakfasted?"

"'Xceptin' the three glasses I told ye of--no."

Well, now, what have you to tell me about the _Termagant_? You have already said that you are one of her crew, and that you were in the boat that day when we had a row about the whale. What more can you tell me?

The sailor sat down on a chair, stretched out his legs quite straight, and very wide apart, and thrust his hands, if possible, deeper into his pockets than they even were thrust before--so deep, in fact, as to suggest the idea that there were no pockets there at all--merely holes. Then he looked at Captain Dunning with a peculiarly sly expression of countenance and winked.

"Well, that's not much. Anything more?" inquired the captain.

"Ho, yes; lots more. The _Termagant's_ in this yere port--at--this-- yere--moment."

The latter part of this was said in a hoarse emphatic whisper, and the man raising up both legs to a horizontal position, let them fall so that his heels came with a crash upon the wooden floor.

"Is she?" cried the captain, with lively interest; "and her captain?"

"He's--yere--too!"

Captain Dunning took one or two hasty strides across the floor, as if he were pacing his own quarterdeck--then stopped suddenly and said--

"Can you get hold of any more of that boat's crew?"

"I can do nothin' more wotiver, nor say nothin' more wotsomediver, till I've tasted that 'ere tipple of yourn."

The captain rang the bell, and the waiter entered with ham and eggs, buttered toast, and hot coffee for two.

The sailor opened his eyes to their utmost possible width, and made an effort to thrust his hands still deeper into his unfathomable trousers pockets; then he sat bolt upright, and gathering his legs as close under his chair as possible, clasped his knees with his hands, hugged himself, and grinned from ear to ear. After sitting a second or two in that position, he jumped up, and going forward to the table, took up the plate of ham and eggs, as if to make sure that it was a reality, and smelt it.

"Is _this_ your favourite tipple?" he said, on being quite satisfied of the reality of what he saw.

"Coffee is my favourite drink," replied the captain, laughing. "I never take anything stronger."

"Ho! you're a to-teetler?"

"I am. Now, my man, as you have not yet had breakfast, and as you interrupted me in the middle of mine, suppose we sit down and discuss the matter of the whale over this."

"Well, this is the rummiest way of offerin' to give a fellow a glass as I ever did come across since I was a tadpole, as sure as my name's Dick Jones," remarked the sailor, sitting down opposite the captain, and turning up the cuffs of his coat.

Having filled his mouth to its utmost possible extent, the astonished seaman proceeded, at one and the same time, to masticate and to relate all that he knew in regard to the _Termagant_.

He said that not only was that vessel in port at that time, but that the same men were still aboard; that the captain--Dixon by name--was still in command, and that the whale which had been seized from the crew of the _Red Eric_ had been sold along with the rest of the cargo. He related; moreover, how that he and his comrades had been very ill-treated by Captain Dixon during the voyage, and that he (Captain D) was, in the opinion of himself and his shipmates, the greatest blackguard afloat, and had made them so miserable by his brutality and tyranny, that they all hoped they might never meet with his like again-- not to mention the hopes and wishes of a very unfeeling nature which they one and all expressed in regard to that captain's future career. Besides all this, he stated that he (Dick Jones) had recognised Captain Dunning when he landed that morning, and had followed him to the cottage with the yellow face and the green door; after which he had taken a turn of half-an-hour or so up and down the street to think what he ought to do, and had at last resolved to tell all that he knew, and offer to stand witness against his captain, which he was then and there prepared to do, at that time or at any future period, wherever he (Captain Dunning) liked, and whenever he pleased, and that there was an end of the whole matter, and that was a fact.

Having unburdened his mind, and eaten all the ham, and eggs, and toast, and drunk all the coffee, and asked for more and got it, Dick Jones proceeded to make himself supremely happy by filling his pipe and lighting it.

"I'll take him to law," said Captain Dunning firmly, smiting the table with his fist.

"I know'd a feller," said Jones, "wot always said, w'en he heard a feller say that, `You'll come for to wish that ye hadn't;' but I think ye're right, cap'en; for it's a clear case, clear as daylight; an' we'll all swear to a'most anything as'll go fur to prove it."

"But are you sure your messmates are as willing as you are to witness against the captain?"

"Sure? In coorse I is--sartin sure. Didn't he lamp two on 'em