Part 16 (1/2)

”I know who you are,” he a.s.serted stoutly. ”You're Father Christmas's brother!”

The First Lieutenant hastily accepted this new mythology. ”Quite right,” he replied with grat.i.tude, ”quite right!” Then, as if realising that something further was required of him, added in a deep ba.s.s voice:

”_Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!_”

White Bow screamed, and even Cornelius James the valiant fell back a pace. Matters were beginning to look serious, when the Torpedo Lieutenant appeared, rather out of breath. ”Sorry we had to rush away just now, but we had to furl the awning----” His quick eye took in the situation at a glance.

”Hallo! old chap,” he cried, and smote the dejected Father Neptune on the back. ”I _am_ delighted to see you! How are all the mermaids and flying-fish? Bless my soul! what have you got in this pannier--dolls . . . lead soldiers, air-guns! I _say_----”

The children rallied round him as the children of another age must have rallied round Saint George of England.

”Don't like nasty old man,” repeated White Bow, considering the First Lieutenant with dewy eyes. ”Nasty cross old man.” The visitor from the bottom of the sea fumbled irresolutely with his trident.

”Is it really Father Christmas's own brother?” queried a small sceptic, advancing warily.

”Of course it is! Look here, look at all the things he's brought you,”

and in an undertone to the First Lieutenant, ”Buck up, Number One, don't look so frightened!” They unslung the pannier and commenced to unpack the contents; the children gathered round with slowly returning confidence, and by twos and threes the remainder of the hosts returned from the upper-deck.

”Why aren't they all wet if they've come from the bottom of the sea?”

demanded Freckles the materialist. ”Why isn't Father Christmas's brother wet?”

They looked round in vain. Father Christmas's brother had vanished.

At that moment the Captain entered and sought his wife's eye. For a few moments they conferred in an undertone; then she laughed, that clear confident laugh of hers with which they had shared so many of life's perplexities.

”Children!” she cried, ”listen! Here's an adventure! We've all got to sleep on board to-night!”

”Oh, mummie!” gasped Georgina with rapture, ”how _lovely_!” This was a party, and no mistake. ”Can I sleep in Mr. Mainwaring's cabin?”

”And can I sleep in Mr. Standish's cabin?” echoed Jane earnestly. ”And we needn't go to bed for hours and hours, need we?” chimed in Cornelius James.

”Where are they to sleep?” asked the Captain's wife, turning to the Torpedo Lieutenant with laughter still in her eyes. ”I never thought of that. One always has spare rooms in a house, but a battles.h.i.+p is so different. . . .”

”It's all right,” he replied. ”I've arranged all that. There are a lot of people ash.o.r.e: the children can use their cabins, and some of us can sling in cots for the night. They'll have to wear our pyjamas. . . . But I don't know about baths----”

”I think they must have plenary absolution from the tub to-night.” She glanced at the tiny watch at her wrist. ”Now then, children, half an hour before bed time: one good romp. What shall we play?”

”Oranges and lemons,” said Georgina promptly, and seized the Indiarubber Man's hand.

”I don't know the words,” replied her partner plaintively; ”I only 'knows the toon,'” as the leadsman said to the Navigator.

So the children supplied the words to the men's ba.s.s accompaniment; the Captain and his wife linked hands. The candle came to light them to bed; the chopper came to chop off a head; and at the end a grand tug-of-war terminated with two squealing heaps of humanity in miniature subsiding on top of the Young Doctor and the A.P.

Then they played ”Hunt the slipper,” at which Torps, with his long arms, greatly distinguished himself, and ”Hide the thimble,” at which Double-O Gerrard, blinking through his gla.s.ses straight at the quarry without seeing it, was hopelessly disgraced. ”General Post” and ”Kiss in the Ring” followed, and quite suddenly the mother of Georgina, Jane, and Cornelius James decreed it was time for bed, and the best game of all began.

The Captain's wife gathered six pairs of vasty pyjamas over her arm.

”I'll take the girls all together and look after them in my husband's cabin,” she said. ”We'll come along when we're ready. Will you all look after the boys?”

Freckles fell to the lot of the Junior Watchkeeper; David, specialist in raspberry puffs, had already attached himself to the Indiarubber Man. The A.P. found himself leading off a young gentleman with an air-gun which he earnestly desired as a bed-fellow. The remaining two, red-headed twins who had spent most of the afternoon locked in combat, were in charge of Torps and the Young Doctor.

”Where's Cornelius James?” asked the First Lieutenant suddenly. ”What a day, what a day!” A search party was promptly inst.i.tuted, and the Captain's son at last discovered forward in the Petty Officers' mess.

Here, seated on the knee of Casey, his father's c.o.xswain, he was being regaled with morsels of bloater, levered into his willing mouth on the point of a clasp knife, and washed down by copious draughts of strong tea out of a basin.