Part 72 (2/2)
The Captain was quite determined, and they went down to the waist. They were raising a bag of potatoes from somewhere, and the Colonial Secretary, seizing two handfuls of them, presented them to the Captain.
”If you will go,” he said, ”take these with you, and teach the poor benighted white savages to plant them. So if you fall a victim to indigestion, we will vote a monument to you on the summit of the Cape, and write:--'He did not live in vain. He introduced the potato among the small cattle stations around Cape Chatham.'”
He held out his potatoes towards the retiring Captain with the air of Burke producing the dagger. His humour, I perceive, reads poor enough when written down, but when a.s.sisted by his comical impa.s.sible face, and solemn drawling delivery, I never heard anything much better.
Good old Pollifex! my heart warms towards him now. When I think what the men were whose clamour put him out of office in 184-, I have the conviction forced upon me, that the best among them was not worth his little finger. He left the colony in a most prosperous state, and, retiring honourably to one of his stations, set to work, as he said, to begin life again on a new principle. He is wealthy, honoured, and happy, as he deserves to be.
I cannot help, although somewhat in the wrong place, telling the reader under what circ.u.mstances I saw him last. Only two years ago, fifteen after he had left office, I happened to be standing with him, at the door of a certain club, in a certain capital, just after lunch time, when we saw the then Colonial Secretary, the man who had succeeded Pollifex, come scurrying round the corner of the street, fresh from his office. His face was flushed and perspiring, his hat was on wrong-side before, with his veil hanging down his back. In the one hand he held papers, in the other he supported over his fevered brow his white cotton umbrella; altogether he looked hara.s.sed beyond the bounds of human endurance, but when he caught sight of the open club-doors, he freshened a bit, and mended his pace. His troubles were not over, for ere he reached his haven, two Irishmen, with two different requests, rose as if from the earth, and confronted him. We saw him make two promises, contradictory to each other, and impossible of fulfilment, and as he came up the steps, I looked into the face of Ex-Secretary Pollifex, and saw there an expression which is beyond description. Say that of the ghost of a man who has been hanged, attending an execution.
Or say the expression of a Catholic, converted by torture, watching the action of the thumb-screws upon another heretic. The air, in short, of a man who had been through it all before. And as the then Secretary came madly rus.h.i.+ng up the steps, Pollifex confronted him, and said,--
”Don't you wish you were me, T----?”
”Sir!” said the Secretary, ”dipping” his umbrella and dropping his papers, for the purpose of rhetorically pointing with his left hand at nothing; ”Sir! flesh and blood can't stand it. I resign to-morrow.” And so he went in to his lunch, and is in office at this present moment.
I must apologize most heartily for this long digression. The Captain's gig, impelled by the ”might of England's pride,” was cleverly beached alongside of the other boat, and the Captain stepped out and confronted the mids.h.i.+pman.
”Got any news, Mr. Vang?”
”Yes, sir!” said the mids.h.i.+pman. ”These gentlemen saw the boat yesterday afternoon.”
Sam and Halbert, who were standing behind him, came forward. The Captain bowed, and looked with admiration at the two highbred-looking men, that this unpromising desert had produced. They told him what they had told the mids.h.i.+pman, and the Captain said,--”It will be a very serious thing for this country side, if these dogs have succeeded in landing. Let us hope that the sea has done good service in swallowing fourteen of the vilest wretches that ever disgraced humanity. Pray, are either of you gentlemen magistrates?”
”My father, Major Buckley, is a magistrate,” said Sam. ”This gentleman is Lieutenant Halbert, of the Bengal Artillery.”
The Captain bowed to Halbert, and turning to Sam, said,--”So you are the son of my old friend Major Buckley! I was mids.h.i.+pman in the 'Phlegethon' when she took him and part of his regiment to Portugal, in 1811. I met him at dinner in Sydney, the other day. Is he in the neighbourhood?”
”He is waiting breakfast for us not a quarter of a mile off,” said Sam.
”Will you join us?”
”I shall be delighted; but duty first. If these fellows have succeeded in landing, you will have to arm and prepare for the worst. Now, unless they were caught by the gale and drowned, which I believe to be the case, they must have come ash.o.r.e in this very bay, about five o'clock last night. There is no other place where they could have beached their boat for many miles. Consequently, the thing lies in a nutsh.e.l.l: if we find the boat, prepare yourselves,--if not, make yourselves easy. Let us use our wits a little. They would round the headland as soon as possible, and probably run ash.o.r.e in that furthest cove to our right, just inside the reef. I have examined the bay through a telescope, and could make out nothing of her. Let us come and examine carefully.
Downhaul!” (to his c.o.xswain). ”Come with me.”
They pa.s.sed three or four indentations in the bay examining as they went, finding nothing, but when they scrambled over the rocks which bounded the cover the Captain had indicated, he waved his hat, and laughing said,--
”Ha, ha! just as I thought. There she is.”
”Where, Captain Blockstrop?” said Halbert. ”I don't see her.”
”Nor I either,” said the Captain. ”But I see the heap of seaweed that the cunning dogs have raked over her.--Downhaul; heave away at this weed, and show these gentlemen what is below it.”
The c.o.xswain began throwing away a pile of seatang heaped against a rock. Bit by bit was disclosed the clean run of a beautiful white whale-boat, which when turned over discovered her oars laid neatly side by side, with a small spritsail. The Captain stood by with the air of a man who had made a hit, while Sam and Halbert stared at one another with looks of blank discomfiture and alarm.
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