Mother Carey's Chicken Part 62

"A signal from the major," said the captain. "There, Mark, a chance for you. Fire in the air."

Mark caught up the gun, held the b.u.t.t on the thwart, and drew trigger, when the flash and report cut the air and echoed from the wood.

Another ten minutes' hard pull and the boat touched the sands close to the fire, where all were gathered in eager expectancy of the lost voyagers, who had, to meet the complaints about dread and anxiety, the news of their discoveries.

"But you have not been much alarmed, I hope?" said the captain, drawing his wife's hand through his arm.

"But we have, captain," cried the major; "for Morgan and I have been in momentary expectation of an attack from that terrible wild beast."

"But there, you are tired and starving," said Mrs Strong. "We have food waiting. Sit down and rest, and we'll tell you all the while."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

HOW THE CIRc.u.mNAVIGATORS RESTED AND HEARD NEWS.

"This here's just what I like, mates," said Billy Widgeon, as he sat on the sand in the full light of the blazing fire with his fellow-sailor opposite to him, and a large piece of palm-leaf for a table-cloth. Jack was on his right munching fruit, and Bruff on his left, sitting up, patiently attentive, waiting for bones from the hissing, hot maleo bird that had been kept for the sailors' dinner.

Small and the other men were close by smoking, and Jimpny, with his head neatly and cleanly bandaged, was lying upon his chest, resting his elbows on the sand and his chin in his hands, kicking up his heels as he stared at Billy Widgeon and listened to his adventures.

Billy was hungry, and so was his mate, and when Billy carved he prepared so to do by opening his jack-knife and whetting it on his boot, after which he seized the bird, which was double the size of a large fowl, by one leg.

"Now, s.h.i.+pmet," he said to his companion, "lay holt o' t'other understanding with both hands, and when I say haul! you put your back into it."

The sailor took hold of the leg, Billy held on by the other, and placed the blade of the knife between two of the fingers of the left hand while he made believe to spit in his right. Then seizing the knife firmly, he plunged the point right into the breast of the fat, juicy bird, a gush of gravy came oozing out, and he began to cut so as to divide the food into two equal portions.

"My hye! he is a joosty one," cried Billy. "It's worth waiting till now to get a treat like this, mates. Can't you smell him? Anyone going to jyne in?"

"No," said Small; "we've all had plenty, my hearty. So go on, and tell us all about what you've done to-day."

"All right!" cried Billy. "Now, then, messmet, she's nearly through.

Now haul, my son. Hauly, hi, ho!"

Billy's fellow-traveller hauled at the bird's leg; but that bird was rather overdone. Mrs Strong, aided by Mary O'Halloran as cook and kitchen-maid, had done their best in the rock kitchen with a fire of cocoa-nut sh.e.l.ls and barks; but some piled-up pieces of coral and basalt, though they are great helps, do not form a patent prize kitchener; and though the result was very tempting to hungry men, there was a want of perfection in the browning of that bird. In fact here and there it was a bit burned, notably in its right leg--the one Billy's companion held--and that leg was so horribly charred that when the man hauled it snapped off like a burned stick, and the bird, by the recoil and drag, came right into Billy's lap.

"What are you up to now?" cried the latter. "Well, you are a chap, playing your larks when we're so hungry! Don't you want none?"

As he spoke, he worked his knife to and fro, and ended by making a division of the bird that could hardly be called a fair one.

"Look at that," he said. "You've got first pick, as I'm carver; and though I feels a deal o' respect for you, matey, I don't think as how as you'd pick out the smallest bit, and hang me if I would, so here goes for another try."

Billy made another cut at the bird, hewing off a good slice of the plump breast, which he laid on to the smaller side, giving it a flap with his blade to make it stick, and then pa.s.sed it over.

"There," he said, "that's fair; so here goes to begin. Hullo, matey, won't you bite?" he continued to the dog. "There, then, you can amoose yourself with them till your betters is done."

He hacked off the bird's head and neck; and after slicing off a portion of the meat, added the drumstick to Bruff's share. He then began eating voraciously, giving his messmates a version of their "adventers," as he called them, since the morning.

Billy would have made a splendid writer of fiction--a most exciting narrator, for he forgot nothing, and he added thereto in a wonderful manner. He threw in, with his mouth full, touches of description that made his companion stare, and his eloquence about the blackened hull of the vessel was wonderful.

"Talk about charkle fires," he cried; "why, if my old mother was here she'd nail the lot and save it, to use up the fruit off some of these here trees and make jam."

"Why, you can't make jam out of a burnt s.h.i.+p," said the stowaway.

"Who ever said you could, Davy Jimpny?" cried Billy. "But you wants charkle to make it with, don't yer?"

"Yes, if you can't get c.o.ke," said the stowaway sadly.

"Well, I aren't seen no gasworks on those here sh.o.r.es nowheres, and so you can't get no c.o.ke, can you?"

"Course not."

"Well, then, charkle it is. The whole deck's charkle, and so's the bulwarks, and the chunk end o' the bowsprit?"

"And the masts, Billy?" said Small.

"Dessay they are, but they're floated away. The whole s.h.i.+p's a reg'lar cellar."

Billy then got on about the length of time they stopped, about the wonderful nature of the crater bay, and the depth of the water.

"Why, when you was rowing acrost it you could feel as it must go right through to the other side, it was so deep. No water couldn't be so black as that was without being hundreds o' knots deep."

"I say, Billy, ain't you getting hundreds o' knots into your yarn?" said Small.

"Not I, bosun. It's all fact; you ask my mate here if it aren't. I suppose you don't want to know about that there shark?" he continued, as he picked a bone in a very ungentlemanly manner, taking his hands to it, and once leaving it stuck across his mouth like a horse's bit, while he altered his position.

"Oh yes, we do! Let's hear about the shark," cried all present.

"Well," said Billy, "there aren't much to tell, only that as we was going along I says to the skipper, I says, 'There's a whacking great shark along yonder.'

"'Ay, Billy,' he says, 'that's a thumper, and no mistake.'

"There he was, going round and round us with his back fin above water, just like a steam launch, and before you knew where you was he puts his head out o' water, gives a squint at us to see which was the best looking to swaller--"

"And he chose you, Billy, because you've got such short legs as wouldn't kick about much when you was down."

"Wrong, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, handing the remains of his half of the bird to the dog and cleaning his knife by sticking it in and out of the sand; "wrong, sir. I think he meant Jack here; but the monkey squeals out and hops under my legs in no time, and Mr Jack-shark alters his mind and goes for Muster Gregory, shoots out o' the water, he does, and he was aboard of us afore we knowed where we was."

"Get out!" said Small.

"It's a fact, Mr Small, sir; ask my mate if it aren't. He didn't stop aboard cause he come crostwise over the bows; but there he was aboard for a moment afore he slips off, and when he comes round to try it again the skipper and Mr Greg lets him have it out o' their guns, and scared him off; and, bless your 'arts, I have seen a few rum games in the sea, but the way his mates chawed him up arterwards beat everything. Why, the lagoon, as they calls it, was chock full o' sharks--millions of 'em."

"Were there now, Billy?" said Small, smiling.

"Well, of course I can't say to a few, for we was a good ways off; but what I do say is that it seemed the sharkiest spot I ever see; and, if they'd only have stood still, you might have walked on their backs for miles."

"Give Billy Widgeon a cocoa-nut to stop his talk," said the boatswain; "and there's a bit o' 'bacco for you, Billy, to clear your memory, my lad."

"Oh, my memory's clear enough, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, who was eating something all the time; "but thanky all the same. And now, how have you got on?"