Part 17 (2/2)

The breeze had by this time died away almost entirely, so that three hours elapsed before the _Talisman_ rounded the point, stood into the bay, and dropt anchor at a distance of about two miles from the suspected schooner.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

REMARKABLE DOINGS OF p.o.o.pY--EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF RESUSCITATION.

It is time now to return to our unfortunate friends, Corrie, Alice, and p.o.o.py, who have been left long enough exposed on the summit of the cliffs, from which they had expected to be tossed by the savages, when the guns of the _Talisman_ so opportunely saved them.

The reader will observe, that these incidents, which have taken so long to narrate, were enacted in a very brief s.p.a.ce of time. Only a few hours elapsed between the firing of the broadside already referred to, and the anchoring of the _Talisman_ in the bay, where the _Foam_ had cast anchor some time before her; yet in this short s.p.a.ce of time many things occurred on the island which are worthy of particular notice.

As we have already remarked, Corrie and his two companions in misfortune had been bound; and, in this condition, were left by the savages to their fate. Their respective positions were by no means enviable. Poor Alice lay near the edge of the cliff, with her wrists and ankles so securely tied that no effort of which she was capable could set her free. p.o.o.py lay about ten yards farther up the cliff, flat on her sable back, with her hands tied behind her, and her ankles also secured; so that she could by no means attain to a sitting position, although she made violent and extraordinary efforts to do so. We say extraordinary, because p.o.o.py, being ingenious, hit upon many devices of an unheard of nature to accomplish her object. Among others, she attempted to turn heels over head, hoping thus to get upon her knees; and there is no doubt whatever that she would have succeeded in this, had not the formation of the ground been exceedingly unfavourable for such a manoeuvre.

Corrie had shewn such an amount of desperate vindictiveness, in the way of kicking, hitting, biting, scratching, and pinching, when the savages were securing him, that they gave him five or six extra coils of the rope of cocoa-nut fibre with which they bound him. Consequently he could not move any of his limbs, and he now lay on his side between Alice and p.o.o.py, gazing with much earnestness and no little astonishment at the peculiar contortions of the latter.

”You'll never manage it, p.o.o.py,” he remarked in a sad tone of voice, on beholding the poor girl balanced on the small of her back, preparatory to making a spring that might have reminded one of the leaps of a trout when thrown from its native element upon the bank of a river. ”And you'll break your neck if you go on like that,” he added, on observing that, having failed in these attempts, she recurred to the heels-over-head process--but all in vain.

”Oh, me!” sighed p.o.o.py, as she fell back in a fit of exhaustion. ”It's be all hup wid us.”

”Don't say that, you goose,” whispered Corrie, ”you'll frighten Alice, you will.”

”Will me?” whispered p.o.o.py, in a tone of self-reproach; then in a loud voice, ”Oh, no! it not all hup yet, Miss Alice. See, me go at it agin.”

And ”go at it” she did in a way that actually alarmed her companions.

At any other time Corrie would have exploded with laughter, but the poor boy was thoroughly overwhelmed by the suddenness and the extent of his misfortune. The image of b.u.mpus, disappearing headlong over that terrible cliff, had filled his heart with a feeling of horror which nothing could allay, and grave thoughts at the desperate case of poor little Alice (for he neither thought of nor cared for p.o.o.py or himself) sank like a weight of lead upon his spirit.

”Don't try it any more, dear p.o.o.py,” said Alice, entreatingly, ”you'll only hurt yourself and tear your frock. I feel _sure_ that some one will be sent to deliver us. Don't _you_, Corrie?”

The tone in which this question was put shewed that the poor child did not feel quite so certain of the arrival of succour as her words implied. Corrie perceived this at once, and, with the heroism of a true lover, he crushed back the feelings of anxiety and alarm which were creeping over his own stout little heart in spite of his brave words, and gave utterance to encouraging expressions and even to slightly jovial sentiments, which tended very much to comfort Alice, and p.o.o.py too.

”Sure?” he exclaimed, rolling on his other side to obtain a view of the child, (for, owing to his position and his fettered condition he had to turn on his right side when he wished to look at p.o.o.py, and on his left when he addressed himself to Alice.) ”Sure? why, of course I'm sure.

D'ye think your father would leave you lying out in the cold all night?”

”No, that I am certain he would not,” cried Alice, enthusiastically; ”but, then, he does not know we are here, and will never think of looking for us in such an unlikely place.”

”Humph! that only shews your ignorance,” said Corrie.

”Well, I dare say I _am_ very ignorant,” replied Alice, meekly.

”No, no! I don't mean _that_,” cried Corrie, with a feeling of self-reproach. ”I don't mean to say that you're ignorant in a general way, you know, but only about what men are likely to do, d'ye see, when they're hard put to it, you understand. _Our_ feelings are so different from yours, you know, and--and--”

Here Corrie broke down, and in order to change the subject abruptly he rolled round towards p.o.o.py, and cried with considerable asperity--

”What on earth d'ye mean, Kickup, by wriggling about your black body in that fas.h.i.+on? If you don't stop it you'll fetch way down the hill, and go slap over the precipice, carrying Alice and me along with you. Give it up now, d'ye hear?”

”No, me won't,” cried p.o.o.py, with great pa.s.sion, while tears sprang from her large eyes, and coursed over her sable cheeks. ”Me _will_ bu'st dem ropes.”

”More likely to do that to yourself if you go on like that,” returned Corrie. ”But, I say, Alice, cheer up,” (here he rolled round on his other side,) ”I've been pondering a plan all this time to set us free, and now I'm going to try it. The only bother about it is that these rascally savages have dropt me beside a pool of half soft mud that I can't help sticking my head into if I try to move.”

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