Part 31 (2/2)
”But I was wrong, sir, for, although the halyards held on all right, I had not calkilated on such wiolent action at the joints. All of a sudden off comes a leg at the knee. It was goin' the up'ard kick at the time, an' went up like a rocket, slap through a troop o' monkeys that was lookin' on aloft, which it scattered like foam in a gale. Yambo didn't seem to care a pinch o' snuff. His blood was up. The sweat was runnin' off him like rain. `Hi!' cries he, givin' another most awful tug. But it wasn't high that time, for the other leg came off at the hip-jint on the down kick, an' went straight into the buzzum of a black warrior an' floored him wuss than he ever wos floored since he took to fightin'. Yambo didn't care for that either. He gave another haul with all his might, which proved too much for jack without his legs, for it threw his arms out with such force that they jammed hard an' fast, as if the poor critter was howlin' for mercy!
”Yambo looked awful blank at this. Then he turned sharp round and looked at me for all the world as if he meant to say `wot d'ee mean by that? eh!'
”`He shouldn't ought to lick into him like that,' says I to Tony, `the figure ain't made to be druv by a six-horse power steam-engine! But tell him I'll fix it up with jints that'll stand pullin' by an elephant, and I'll make him another jack to the full as big as that one an' twice as strong.'
”This,” added Disco in conclusion, taking up the head on which he had been engaged, ”is the noo jack. The old un's outside working away at this moment like a win'-mill. Listen; don't 'ee hear 'em?”
Harold listened and found no difficulty in hearing them, for peals of laughter and shrieks of delight burst forth every few minutes, apparently from a vast crowd outside the hut.
”I do believe,” said Disco, rising and going towards the door of the hut ”that you can see 'em from where you lay.”
He drew aside the skin doorway as he spoke, and there, sure enough, was the gigantic jumping-jack hanging from the limb of a tree, clearly defined against the sky, and galvanically kicking about its vast limbs, with Yambo pulling fiercely at the tail, and the entire tribe looking on steeped in ecstasy and admiration.
It may easily be believed that the sight of this, coupled with Disco's narrative, was almost too much for Harold's nerves, and for some time he exhibited, to Disco's horror, a tendency to repeat some antics which would have been much more appropriate to the jumping-jack, but, after a warm drink administered by his faithful though rough nurse, he became composed, and finally dropped into a pleasant sleep, which was not broken till late the following morning.
Refreshed in body, happy in mind, and thankful in spirit he rose to feel that the illness against which he had fought for many days was conquered, and that, although still very weak, he had fairly turned the corner, and had begun to regain some of his wonted health and vigour.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
HAROLD APPEARS IN A NEW CHARACTER, AND TWO OLD CHARACTERS REAPPEAR TO HAROLD.
The mind of Yambo was a strange compound--a curious mixture of gravity and rollicking joviality; at one time displaying a phase of intense solemnity; at another exhibiting quiet pleasantry and humour, but earnestness was the prevailing trait of his character. Whether indulging his pa.s.sionate fondness for the jumping-jack, or engaged in guiding the deliberations of his counsellors, the earnest chief was equally devoted to the work in hand. Being a savage--and, consequently, led entirely by feeling, which is perhaps the chief characteristic of savage, as distinguished from civilised, man,--he hated his enemies with exceeding bitterness, and loved his friends with all his heart.
Yambo was very tender to Harold during his illness, and the latter felt corresponding grat.i.tude, so that there sprang up between the two a closer friends.h.i.+p than one could have supposed to be possible, considering that they were so different from each other, mentally, physically, and socially, and that their only mode of exchanging ideas was through the medium of a very incompetent interpreter.
Among other things Harold discovered that his friend the chief was extremely fond of anecdotes and stories. He, therefore, while in a convalescent state and unable for much physical exercise, amused himself, and spent much of his time, in narrating to him the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Yambo's appet.i.te for mental food increased, and when Crusoe's tale was finished he eagerly demanded more. Some of his warriors also came to hear, and at last the hut was unable to contain the audiences that wished to enter. Harold, therefore, removed to an open s.p.a.ce under a banyan-tree, and there daily, for several hours, related all the tales and narratives with which he was acquainted, to the hundreds of open-eyed and open-mouthed negroes who squatted around him.
At first he selected such tales as he thought would be likely to amuse, but these being soon exhausted, he told them about anything that chanced to recur to his memory. Then, finding that their power to swallow the marvellous was somewhat crocodilish, he gave them Jack the Giant-killer, and Jack of Beanstalk notoriety, and Tom Thumb, Cinderella, etcetera, until his entire nursery stock was exhausted, after which he fell back on his inventive powers; but the labour of this last effort proving very considerable, and the results not being adequately great, he took to history, and told them stories about William Tell, and Wallace, and Bruce, and the Puritans of England, and the Scottish Covenanters, and the discoveries of Columbus, until the eyes and mouths of his black auditors were held so constantly and widely on the stretch, that Dis...o...b..gan to fear they would become gradually incapable of being shut, and he entertained a fear that poor Antonio's tongue would, ere long, be dried up at the roots.
At last a thought occurred to our hero, which he promulgated to Disco one morning as they were seated at breakfast on the floor of their hut.
”It seems to me, Disco,” he said, after a prolonged silence, during which they had been busily engaged with their knives and wooden spoons, ”that illness must be sent sometimes, to teach men that they give too little of their thoughts to the future world.”
”Werry true, sir,” replied Disco, in that quiet matter-of-course tone with which men generally receive axiomatic verities; ”we _is_ raither given to be swallered up with this world, which ain't surprisin'
neither, seein' that we've bin putt into it, and are surrounded by it, mixed up with it, steeped in it, so to speak, an' can't werry well help ourselves.”
”That last is just the point I'm not quite so sure about,” rejoined Harold. ”Since I've been lying ill here, I have thought a good deal about forgetting to bring a Bible with me, and about the meaning of the term Christian, which name I bear; and yet I can't, when I look honestly at it, see that I do much to deserve the name.”
”Well, I don't quite see that, sir,” said Disco, with an argumentative curl of his right eyebrow; ”you doesn't swear, or drink, or steal, or commit murder, an' a many other things o' that sort. Ain't that the result o' your being a Christian.”
”It may be so, Disco, but that is only what may be styled the _don't_ side of the question. What troubles me is, that I don't see much on the _do_ side of it.”
”You says your prayers, sir, don't you?” asked Disco, with the air of a man who had put a telling question.
”Well, yes,” replied Harold; ”but what troubles me is that, while in my creed I profess to think the salvation of souls is of such vital importance, in my practice I seem to say that it is of no importance at all, for here have I been, for many weeks, amongst these black fellows, and have never so much as mentioned the name of our Saviour to them, although I have been telling them no end of stories of all kinds, both true and fanciful.”
”There's something in that sir,” admitted Disco. Harold also thought there was so much in it that he gave the subject a great deal of earnest consideration, and finally resolved to begin to tell the negroes Bible stories. He was thus gradually led to tell them that ”old, old story”
of G.o.d the Saviour's life and death, and love for man, which he found interested, affected, and influenced the savages far more powerfully than any of the tales, whether true or fanciful, with which he had previously entertained them. While doing this a new spirit seemed to actuate himself, and to influence his whole being.
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