Part 3 (2/2)
”Humph! he will find that I bite before I roar, if he does get between my teeth,” said the young officer.
”Surely you are mistaken, Gascoyne,” interposed Henry Stuart, who, along with John b.u.mpus, had hitherto been silent listeners to the foregoing conversation. ”Several of our people have been out fis.h.i.+ng among the islands, and have neither seen nor heard of this redoubted pirate.”
”That is possible enough, boy, but I have seen him, nevertheless, and I shall be much surprised if you do not see and hear more of him than you desire before many days are out. That villain does not sail the seas for pastime, you may depend on it.”
As Gascoyne said this, the outer door of the house was burst violently open, and the loud voice of a boy was heard in the porch or short pa.s.sage that intervened between it and the princ.i.p.al apartment of the cottage, shouting wildly--”Ho! hallo! hurrah! I say, Widow Stuart!
Henry! here's a business--sich fun! only think, the pirate's turned up at last, and murdered half the n.i.g.g.e.rs in--”
There was an abrupt stoppage both of the voice and the muscular action of this juvenile tornado as he threw open the door with a crash, and, instead of the widow or her son, met the gaze of so many strangers. The boy stood for a few seconds on the threshold, with his curly brown hair dishevelled, and his dark eyes staring in surprise, first at one, then at another of the party, until at length they alighted on John b.u.mpus.
The mouth, which up to that moment had formed a round O of astonishment, relaxed into a broad grin, and, with sudden energy, exclaimed--
”_What_ a grampus!”
Having uttered this complimentary remark, the urchin was about to retreat, when Henry made a sudden dart at him, and caught him by the collar.
”Where got you the news, Will Corrie?” said Henry, giving the boy a squeeze with his strong hand.
”Oh, please, be merciful, Henry, and I'll tell you all about it. But, pray, don't give me over to that grampus,” cried the lad, pretending to whimper. ”I got the news from a feller, that said he'd got it from a feller, that saw a feller, who said he'd heard a feller tell another feller, that he saw a _black_ feller in the bush, somewhere or other 'tween this and the other end o' the island, with a shot hole in his right arm, running like a cogolampus, with ten pirates in full chase.
Ah! oh! have mercy, Henry; really my const.i.tution will break down if you--”
”Silence, you chatter-box, and give me a reasonable account of what you have heard or seen, if you can.”
The volatile urchin, who might have been about thirteen years of age, became preternaturally grave all of a sudden, and, looking up earnestly in his questioner's face, said, ”Really, Henry, you are becoming unreasonable in your old age, to ask me to give you a reasonable account of a thing, and at the same time to be silent!”
”I'll tell you what, Corrie, I'll throttle you if you don't speak,” said Henry.
”Ah! you _couldn't_,” pleaded Corrie in a tone of deep pathos.
”P'raps,” observed John b.u.mpus, ”p'raps if you hand over the young gen'l'm'n to the `grampus,' _he'll_ make him speak.”
On hearing this, the boy set up a howl of affected despair, and suffered Henry to lead him unresistingly to within a few feet of b.u.mpus, but, just as he was within an inch of the huge fist of that nautical monster, he suddenly wrenched his collar out of his captor's grasp, darted to the door, turned round on the threshold, hit the side of his own nose a sounding slap with the forefinger of his right hand, uttered an inexpressively savage yell, vanished from the scene, and,--
”Like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a wreck behind.”
Except the wreck of the milk-saucer of the household cat, which sagacious creature had wisely taken to flight at the first symptom of war.
The boy was instantly followed by Henry, but so light was his foot, that the fastest runner in the settlement had to penetrate the woods immediately behind his mother's house for a quarter of a mile before he succeeded in again laying hold of the refractory lad's collar.
”What do you mean, Corrie, by such conduct?” said his captor, shaking him vigorously. ”I have half a mind to give you a wallopping.”
”Never do anything by halves, Henry,” said the boy mildly. ”_I_ never do. It's a bad habit; always go the whole length or none. Now that we are alone, I'll give you a reasonable account of what I know, if you'll remove your hand from my collar. You forget that I'm growing, and that, when I am big enough, the day of reckoning between us will surely come!”
”But why would you not give me the information I want in the house. The people you saw there are as much interested in it as I am.”
”Oh! are they?” returned Corrie with a glance of peculiar meaning; ”perhaps they are _more_ interested than you are.”
”How so?”
<script>