Part 10 (1/2)

After tea was over Baboo Bajorum made a sign to the pirate Captain and he got up and bowed more deeply than ever and began to tell his story.

”This,” he said, ”is the story of how we were made into Polite Pirates. When first we were pirates we were a disgrace to the name. We chased s.h.i.+ps and made them prisoners. We robbed them of their treasures and burned them and sank them in the sea. We made people walk the plank or chopped their heads off. n.o.body would a.s.sociate with us and we were never invited anywhere. I think I might even say that we were disliked. One day we dropped anchor near a small island in the Indian Ocean. We were very hot and tired because the sun was blazing and the sea was like a burning-gla.s.s and we had been having a busy day. We had chased a merchant vessel loaded with a rich cargo of gold and splendid stuff and ivory, and when we had caught it we had behaved in our usual rude and inconsiderate way. We had sliced any number of heads off, and after we had carried the rich cargo to our own s.h.i.+p we had blown up the merchant s.h.i.+p without a word of apology. We were so hot and tired when we dropped anchor near the little island that we all lay down in our hammocks and fell into a deep sleep.

”Just before I went down to my cabin one of the other pirates asked me to come with him to the side of the s.h.i.+p and look at something he had been noticing on the island.

”'Do you see those big creatures dodging in and out among the trees?'

he said. 'Are they savages, or what are they?'

”I took my spy-gla.s.s and looked and saw that there really were some big creatures moving about among the cocoanut palm trees. They seemed to be peeping at us but trying to keep out of our sight and I could not see them plainly at all.

”'They look like savages dressed in skins of wild beasts,' I said; 'but they cannot do us any harm so long as we are on the sea and they are on the land. We will go to our cabins and sleep and leave one of the little cabin boys to watch.'

”So we went downstairs and left a little pirate whose name was Reginal Cyrel Adolphin Seymour to watch. He was a little boy who had run away from school to be a pirate, and very often he had been heard to remark that now he really was a pirate he would rather learn the multiplication table. He was as hot and tired as any of us that day, and what _he_ did was to fall asleep the minute the rest of us had gone to lie down.” The pirate Captain stopped and cleared his throat and mopped his forehead with his red handkerchief.

”What happened then?” asked Barty. He saw Baboo Bajorum leaning forward with his big hairy hands on his knees and listening attentively. The pirate Captain began again:

”The sun got hotter and hotter and we slept and slept and slept. You know how heavily one sleeps on a hot day and how hard it is to get awake when you try. We did not try, but suddenly we all wakened at once. We were wakened by a great roaring which we thought was a sudden storm. But it was not a storm. It was a Baboo Bajorum sound, which you have never heard and which I hope you will never hear. It is louder than lions and fiercer than tigers and more piercing than panthers and leopards. Baboo Bajorums never make it unless they are very angry indeed, and when you hear it you had better look out.”

”Are there more Baboo Bajorums than one?” Barty asked. ”I thought this gentleman was the only one in the world.”

The pirate Captain opened his mouth very wide and drew a long breath.

Then he said in a solemn voice:

”When we waked up there were forty-two Baboo Bajorums on our s.h.i.+p and one was sitting by each man's hammock and roaring the angry roar.”

”Ah,” said Barty, ”how frightening!” and he felt quite alarmed.

”It was frightening,” replied the pirate Captain, ”but we deserved it--for our unpoliteness. We had disturbed the Captain of the merchant s.h.i.+p at his dinner when we cut his head off, and we had disturbed the whole crew when we blew the s.h.i.+p up. Books about politeness always say that you must have quiet and una.s.suming manners. We deserved all that happened. We had been loud and a.s.suming.”

”What _did_ happen?” inquired Barty, and the Good Wolf leaned forward to listen, and Sat.u.r.day leaned forward and Blue Crest nearly tilted over with eagerness.

”When they stopped roaring they took us all prisoners. They had swum over from the little island and climbed up the s.h.i.+p's side as soon as they were sure we were asleep. This gentleman,” and he made a bow to Baboo Bajorum, ”is the Great Baboo of all. He made me get out of my hammock and fastened a chain round my waist so that he could lead me about. The other Baboos did the same with the other pirates. The first place he led me to was to a black corner down in the hold. I had taken captive a sick old gentleman on the merchant s.h.i.+p and I had loaded him with chains and put him down in the darkest corner of the bottom of the s.h.i.+p. I was going to try and make him sign a paper to give me the money he had left on land. Baboo Bajorum made me take the chains off him and take him on deck and wait on him and make bows to him until my back was almost broken.”

”He must have been very glad,” said Barty, quite relieved.

”He was gladder than I was,” said the pirate Captain. ”It was through him that we found out what the Baboo Bajorum really intended to teach us. We were so frightened that we could not understand their signs, and as they always knocked us down or threw us overboard when we did not obey at once, we should very soon have been black and blue all over. The sea was very full of sharks near the island and when you were thrown overboard you never knew whether you would get back or not.”

”That was dangerous enough to make any one polite,” said Barty.

”But,” said the Captain, ”we did not know it was politeness they wanted until we brought the old gentleman out of the hold. He was very polite himself and made the most beautiful bows to all the Baboos.

They had never seen bows before and they were very much pleased and began to practice bowing themselves. When the old gentleman was bowing a book fell out of his pocket. The Great Baboo kicked me until I picked it up. This is it. I never go anywhere without it.” He took a book from his pocket and handed it to Barty, who opened it.

”'A Guide to Perfect Politeness, With Rules for Entertaining Royal Families, the n.o.bility and Gentry.' That is the name of it,” said Barty. ”Are there any adventures in it?”

”Not exactly adventures,” said the pirate Captain. ”It tells you how to converse brilliantly and how to fill up awkward pauses and how to begin a letter to a duke when you are writing to one, besides about never eating with your knife and always saying 'please' and 'I thank you' and 'pray excuse me' and 'I beg your pardon.'”