Part 22 (1/2)

”Oh, it is all for the good of science. Shall I describe it?”

”No, no, no?” cried Harry.

”Then come below to breakfast, boys.”

”Why,” said Mavers, ”you've almost taken away my appet.i.te.”

”And mine too,” said Harry Milvaine.

”Stay,” exclaimed the doctor, ”I will restore it. Listen.”

He threw himself into an att.i.tude as he spoke.

”Sweetly, oh, sweetly the morning breaks With roseate streaks, Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks.

Alas! that ever so fair a sun As that which its course has now begun Should gild with rays, so light and free, That dismal dark-frowning gallows-tree.”

”I'm not sure,” said Mavers, laughing, ”that you haven't made matters worse. But come along, we'll go below, anyhow.”

The _Bunting_, as her name implies, was only a little bit of a gunboat, but to the slave-dealing dhows she became the scourge of the seas in the Indian Ocean, all the way south from Delagoa Bay, to Brava and Magadoxa in the north.

She was always appearing where least expected, sometimes far out at sea, at other times inland on rivers or wooded creeks. She could sail as well as any dhow, and that is saying a good deal, and she could steam well also.

Many a prize fell to her lot, many a cutting-out expedition the boats had, and right bravely they did their work. So the prize money that would fall to the share of even the ordinary seamen when the commission was completed, would be rather more than a trifle.

On Sat.u.r.day nights, when, after dancing for a time to the merry tunes the doctor played on his fiddle, the sailors would a.s.semble round the fo'c's'le to smoke their pipes and quaff the modest drop of rum they had saved to toast their sweethearts and wives in, they might be heard building castles in the air as to what they would do with their prize money.

Perhaps the conversation would be somewhat as follows:--

”I'm going to pour all my prize money into my old mother's lap straight away as soon as I gets it.”

”Ah! well, Jack, you _have_ a mother, I hain't, but I'll give mine to my Soosie. My eye! maties, but she's a slick fine la.s.s. Talk about a figure! Soosie's is the finest ever you saw. Blow'd if two arms would meet round her waist, fact I tells ye, mates. I've seen a rye-nosser-oss with not 'arf so fine a figure as Soosie's got.”

”But,” another would say, ”I'm going to keep all my prize money in the bank till I serves my time out in the service; then I'll take a public-house.”

”That's my ambition too, Bill.”

”Yes, and ain't it a proper ambition too?”

”That it be.”

”And if ever any of you old chums drops round to see Jack behind his bar counter--ahem! my eye! maties, won't I be glad to see you just! Won't I get out the longest clay pipe in the shanty, and the best n.i.g.g.e.r head!

And won't I draw ye a drop o' summut as will make all the 'air on your 'eads stand straight up like a frightful porkeypine's! And maybe there won't be much to pay for it either?”

It will be noted from the above conversation that the aims in life of the British man-o'-war sailor are seldom of a very exalted character.

But even in the little ward-room prize money was not altogether left out of count in conversation on Sat.u.r.day nights.

”I believe,” said the doctor once, ”I shall have over a thousand pounds when I get home. I think I'll cut the service, buy a sh.o.r.e practice, and settle down.”