The Powder Monkey Part 1

The Powder Monkey.

by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.

"Hi-lo!"

The little boy raised his head with a sudden start.

"Hilli--hi--ho! What cheer?"

The little fellow started to his feet from where he had been sitting upon a sloping bank, and caught at the bars of the gate close by. He said nothing, but stared through the gloom of the autumn evening at the strange man, who now roared out:

"What cheer, I says! What cheer?"

The little fellow made an effort to speak, but only sighed at first, before stammering out:

"Please, sir, I don't know what you mean."

"You don't?" growled the man, fiercely, as he clapped the palm of his left hand upon the front of his waistband, and the back of his right hand level with it behind; then kicking out his right leg behind, he made a kind of hop on his left, as if to shake himself down into his clothes, as he hoisted them up.

"You don't?" he said again, as he stared at the little fellow. "What are you, then? A furrener?"

"No, sir," said the little boy, shrinking; for the man now took a step forward and clapped a big, brown, tarry hand upon his shoulder.

"Then why can't yer understand yer own lingo?"

"I do, sir," said the boy, with a sound like a sob.

"Then why did you say you didn't, and make me think you was a Frenchy?"

"I didn't know what you meant, sir, by 'hilli' something, and 'what cheer.'"

"Why, yer young savage!" cried the man. "Arn't yer never been to school?"

"Yes, sir, and had a tutor."

"A tutor, eh? What may that be? But lookye here, my lad; I arn't a _sir_--on'y a marrineer."

"A what, sir?" said the boy, staring.

"Marrineer--seaman. Fore the mast man, s.h.i.+p now lying off the port o'

Torquay. Whatcher doing there?"

"Cry-ying, sir," came for answer, with a piteous sob.

"Cry-hying, you young swab?" roared the man, as if he were speaking through a storm. "Here, sop that up. Father been leathering yer?"

"No, sir."

"No, Jack Jeens!" yelled the man. "_Sir_, indeed! Jack Jeens--that's my name. England is my dwellin' place--leastwise, when I arn't off France and Spain, or in the 'Terranium leathering the French. Now, then, who has been givin' it to you? Mother, p'r'aps, and turned you out of doors?"

"No, sir," sobbed the boy, with a piteous look, in the gathering darkness.

"Yah!" came so savagely that the boy started to run; but the grip upon his shoulder tightened, and he was forced back against the bars of the gate. "Now, just you look here, messmet. You're such a little un that I don't like to hit yer for fear you should break; but don't you haggravate me by talking as if I was a hofficer."

"No, sir; please, sir--" stammered the boy.

"Hark at him!" growled the man, speaking to one of the stone gate-posts; and then, turning to the other, "Is he a hidgit?"

"No, that I'm not!" cried the boy, speaking indignantly now. "I wanted to say that I had no father and no mother."

"Then why didn't you say so at first?" growled the man. "But got no father nor mother?"

"No, s--no, no!" cried the boy.

"You're a horphan, mate?"

"Yes--Jack Jeens, didn't you say you were?"

"Right, boy; and that shows me straight and plain that you ain't a hidgit. Shake hands, mate. I'm just the same as you. I'm a horphan, too, on'y I don't pipe my eye like you do."

The boy held out his hand, which the next moment lay, looking dimly white, in the great, hairy paw which seized it.

"Leave crying to the women, my lad. Now then, what's the matter?"

The tears started to the boy's eyes again and he uttered a kind of gasp as he strove to master the desire to sob aloud, and said in a broken voice:

"I'm tired and cold and hungry."

"Eh? Then why don't you go home?"

"I have no home now," said the little fellow, sadly.

"That's queer agen," said the sailor, in quite a sympathetic tone now.

"You're a horphan like me, and now you've got no home. What, nowhere to go and sleep to-night?"

"No--" said the boy, and the word "sir" nearly slipped out again.

"Why, you're quite a s.h.i.+p in distress, messmet, and it seems lucky you've failed in with me. Hungry and out o' water, are yer?"

"Very hungry, please," said the boy; "but I found some water over there, running by the roadside, before it was dark, and I drank some."

"Ah, that's why it came out o' them eyes o' yourn like a s.h.i.+pped wave out o' the scuppers. Well, I got a shot or two yet in the locker, so come along o' me and I'll get yer something to eat, anyhow. Here, hook on to my fin."

The man's tone was so friendly, and he held out his hand in such a kindly way, that the little fellow caught at it eagerly, and with the darkness thickening fast, began to trot beside his new friend as he strode off, but only to totter breathlessly at the end of a few minutes and then stumble, ready to fall but for the strong arm which dragged him up.