Fire Island Part 49

Oliver thought and said so to Mr Rimmer, who, with a double gun resting in the hollow of his left arm, had joined them, for he spent nearly the whole of his time on deck.

"Perhaps you are right," he said. "I hope it is so. We did give them a terrible peppering. I don't think anyone was killed, but they took away enough shot to make them remember us by."

"Poor wretches," said Oliver. "They don't understand the powers of civilisation."

"Poor wretches, indeed!" said Panton, giving a writhe. "I don't feel much pity for them. Murderous thieves."

"They are," said the mate, "some of them, and it's wonderful what conceit the black beggars have. But we must not be too hopeful, for there's no trusting savages. They jump into their canoes and they are here, there, and everywhere in a few hours. Let's hear what report Mr Drew gives us when he comes back."

"Hang the savages!" said Panton, pettishly.

"Must catch 'em first, sir," said the mate, laughing.

"They seem to have put a stop to everything," said Oliver, joining in with a smile. "But we'll forgive them if they'll only keep away and let us go on with our work, and," he added with a sigh, "it is such a lovely place, and there is so much to do."

"Yes, it's glorious," said Panton, as his eyes slowly took in their surroundings. "Now, too, that the volcano's calming down, everything promises that we shall have had a glorious expedition."

"Lovely, sir," said the mate, drily. "What about my poor s.h.i.+p?"

"Yes, that is bad, but I wouldn't mind losing a brig for the sake of reaching so wonderful a country."

"Ah, that's where I don't agree with you, sir," said the mate. "The place is very glorious, and it's grand to get to a new country--where--"

"Look! look!" cried Oliver. "Mr Rimmer, your gun! Those birds with the long loose tails!"

"Eh? Well, I didn't pull their tails and make 'em loose, sir. More likely the monkeys."

"You've lost the chance," cried Oliver, pettishly. "Didn't you see?

They were a kind of bird of paradise that I don't think I have seen before."

"Those were, sir?" said the mate, looking after the birds. "Well, I should have said they were a kind of crow."

"Well, so they are, but very beautiful, all the same. You might shoot a few birds for me, and I could sit and skin and preserve them, then I should not feel that I was losing so much time."

"Wait till Mr Drew comes back, sir, and begin in earnest to-morrow.

I'll shoot all I can then, and the men will be very glad of the birds without their skins, for they're longing for fresh meat, and if we can, we must have another turn at the fish."

"And we can't go," sighed Oliver. "I am so longing to study up those wonderfully-marked fish."

"You'll never get through all you want to do if we stay here for years,"

said the mate, smiling. "But look there, I must have that."

He pointed over the side to where a handsome little roe-deer had come trotting forward away from some half-dozen companions which had halted and were gazing wonderingly at the brig, while the one which had advanced, evidently more daring or more carried away by curiosity, came on and on till it was about fifty yards from the vessel. Here it stood at gaze, so beautiful a specimen of an animal, that Oliver felt, naturalist though he was, and eager to collect, it would be a pity to destroy so lovely a creature's life.

There it stood in full view, profoundly ignorant of the fact that its life was in danger, while the mate hurriedly exchanged the shot cartridge in one of the chambers of the gun for a bullet. Then, laying the barrel of his gun upon the bulwark in an opening between two pieces of the sailcloth rigged up for defence, he said, softly,--

"This skin will do for a specimen, too, won't it?"

"Yes, of course," said Oliver, eagerly.

"That's right, sir, and it has a beautiful head."

He took careful aim as he spoke.

"That's dead on the shoulder," he said, softly, and then he fired, the young men having the satisfaction of seeing the little buck go bounding away like the wind after its companions, who went off at the flash of the gun.

"Missed him," said Panton, rather contemptuously.

"Couldn't have missed," said the mate, sharply. "I took such careful aim. Wait a moment or two, and you'll see it drop. It was a dead shot."

"Then you didn't kill its legs, too," said Oliver; "they're lively enough. How the little thing can run."

"I tell you it's a dead roe-buck," said the mate, sharply.

"Then why does it keep on running?" said Panton.

"That's the vitality left in it," said the mate. "It will soon drop.

I'll go after it at once. It can't run far."

As he was speaking he hurriedly threw open the breech of his piece and drew out the discharged cartridge.

"Hullo!" he cried.

"What's the matter?" said Oliver.

"Well, hang it all!"

"Why don't you speak?"

"It's enough to make any man speak," cried the mate, angrily. "Don't you see this is only a blue cartridge and number six shot? I pulled the wrong trigger. Here's the bullet cartridge in the other barrel."

"Then you only tickled the buck," said Panton, laughing. "Why, at fifty yards that shot wouldn't go through the skin."

"Humph!" said the mate, "so much the better for the buck. What a pity, though; there goes a delicious dinner of good fresh venison."

"Never mind, you may get another chance."

"I don't know. If this is an island, there are not likely to be a great many, and once they are shot at they will become shy. See anything, my lad?" he cried to the man in the sheltered top.

"No, sir, not a sign o' nothing," replied the sailor.

"Keep a sharp look-out."

"Ay, ay, sir."

The mate turned to the wounded pa.s.sengers.

"These fellows generally have an idea that their officer is as blind as a mole, and that they are as cunning as the cleverest man who was ever born. Now that fellow thinks I don't know he was asleep at his post."