Part 31 (1/2)
Nor would there be any more, for his ringing bark was hushed, his body and tail alike stiff and cold, while his n.o.ble heart which only throbbed with affection for those whom he loved when living, had stopped beating for aye.
”My dear child, poor Ivan is dead!” said Colonel Vereker tenderly after a short pause, drawing the young girl up to him so that she might not see the gruesome sight on the deck below. ”The brave dog sacrificed his life for mine, and but for his help, little one, I should not now be by your side.”
This account of the poor animal's heroic end, however, did not comfort little Elsie, who gave a startled glance at her father's face; where, seeing something there that made her comprehend her loss, she buried her golden head on his breast, sobbing as though her heart would break.
”Poor, poor, dear Ivan; he never left me once, never, my father, since you--you went out of the cabin that last night and told him to watch me!” she exclaimed presently, in halting accents between her convulsive sobs, neither the colonel or myself dry-eyed as we listened to her tale, you may be sure. ”But--but all at once, after all the noise and that dreadful firing that seems now to go through my ears, I--I heard your voice quite distinctly on the deck; and so, too, did poor Ivan, for I saw him instantly put up his ears, while he whined and looked beseechingly at us.”
”Well, after that, my child,” said the colonel, on her stopping for the moment, overcome with emotion, ”what happened next?”
”He made a dash at the cabin table and jumped up on it, and then the poor fellow growled savagely at some one outside. Then--then before I could hold him back he made a most desperate spring and sprung right up through the gla.s.s roof on the top of the sky--skylight, and he must have cut himself very very much. Poor, poor doggie! And now you say my poor Ivan is dead, and that I shall never see the dear good faithful creature again. Oh, my father!”
At this point the young girl again broke down.
Nor were her tears a mere pa.s.sing tribute of grief. For, though dead, Ivan is not forgotten, like some people, the remembrance of whom is as evanescent as the scent of the flowers that hypocritical mourners may ostentatiously scatter upon their graves; his little mistress, little no longer, preserving his memory yet green in her heart of hearts, close to which she wears always a small locket containing likenesses of her father and mother, together with a miniature of Ivan--her father's preserver--with a tiny lock added from the brave dog's curly black coat.
Some ultra-sanctimonious persons may feel inclined to cavil with this a.s.sociation on Elsie's part of ”immortal beings,” as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a ”dead brute,”
because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul; but were these gentry to broach the subject before her, being a somewhat outspoken young lady from her foreign bringing up, which puts her beyond the pale of boarding-school punctiliousness, she would probably urge that she estimated poor Ivan's sagacious instinct combined with his courage and n.o.ble self-sacrifice, at a far higher level than the paltry apology for a soul that pa.s.ses current for the genuine article with matter-of-fact religionists of the stamp of her questioner.
But Elsie was ”little Elsie” still, at the time of which I am speaking, and too young, perhaps, for such thoughts to occur to her mind, which at the moment was too full of her loss.
The cheering that had followed the last tussle of our men with the black mutineers had now ceased, and all these things happening, you must understand, much more rapidly than I can talk or attempt to chronicle them, the skipper, with Mr Fosset and Garry O'Neil, came hurriedly up on the p.o.o.p.
Both expressed their unbounded delight at seeing the child was safe and in the care of her father.
Sure, an' what's the little colleen cryin' for? eagerly inquired Garry, his smoke-begrimed face, which bore ample evidence of the desperate struggle in which he had been so gallantly engaged, wearing a look of deep commiseration as he gazed from her father to me, and then again at her. ”Faith, I hope she's not been hurt or frightened?”
”No, thank G.o.d!” replied the colonel huskily. ”Grieving for her poor dog Ivan, who--”
”Och yes, I saw the n.o.ble baste,” interrupted Garry in his quick, enthusiastic way. ”Begorrah, colonel, he fought betther than any two- legged Christian amongst us, an' I can't say more than that for him, sure, paice to his name!”
Before he could say anything further, and you know he was a rare one to talk when once he commenced, the skipper advanced again, holding out his hand to the colonel exclaiming-- ”Yes, thank G.o.d you are all right and that your little child is safe, and escaped any harm from those scoundrels, except her nerves probably being much shaken, but that she will soon recover at her age--and I told you she should be restored to you, you know. By George! Though, we've paid them out at last for demon's work aboard here!”
”The devils!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Colonel Vereker savagely, his mood changing as he recollected all he had seen and suffered at their hands. ”Have you killed them all?”
”All but half a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them. They are fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double hitches, I know. Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard if they offer to stir.”
”Faith,” observed Garry O'Neil reflectively, ”It was as purty a bit of foighting as I ivver took a hand in, whilst it lasted!”
”But let us go and see what has become of all those chaps below--all those you mentioned as belonging to the French crew, whom you left on board with your daughter,” went on the skipper. ”We saw the flash of a pistol, you remember, when we came up alongside, and somebody must have prevented those villains from getting into the cabin, or else--”
He stopped here and looked meaningly at Elsie.
”Heavens!” exclaimed the colonel, attempting to rise, but falling back on the hen-coop along the side of the bulwarks he had been using for a temporary seat, he seemed so utterly exhausted. ”Ah, those brave fellows, I was almost forgetting them; but I can't move, Senor Applegarth, or I should have gone down before this to see what had become of my old comrades; but I'm helpless, as you see.”
Elsie now lifted her head, looked up and turned towards the skipper.
”They are all wounded,” said she, clasping her hands together and with a look of fright on her face. ”Two of the men--the French sailors, I mean--and the English gentleman.”
”That's the little Britisher I told you about, who was so plucky,”