Courage, True Hearts Part 19

"What a lonely life to lead!" said Conal next day at breakfast.

"Yes," said Morgan, "and I shouldn't care to get spliced and settle down here all my life, pretty and all as the girls are."

"Well, you would live long and be healthy anyhow if you did," said Captain Talbot.

The mate laughed as he helped himself to another huge slice of barracouta.

"Never mind that, sir. I wouldn't marry and live in Tristan if they gave me three wives."

"But aren't these girls shy?" said Frank. "Why, I asked one innocently enough to give me a kiss, and she blushed like a blood orange."

"Did she give you the kiss?" asked Morgan mischievously.

"No, that she didn't, but--I took it."

The _Flora M'Vayne_ lay here for a whole week, fishing and curing each catch.

This was a rare holiday for the islanders, who were the gayest of the gay all the time.

One morning a sailor of the crew sought an interview with Captain Talbot on the quarter-deck.

"Well, my man?"

"Well, sir, it's like this. I've fallen in love here with the slickest-lookin' bit of a la.s.s I ever clapped eyes upon 'twix' here, sir, and San Domingo; and if you please, capting, I wants to stay here and marry her right away, and live happy hever arterwards."

The captain laughed.

"My good fellow," he said, "I am truly sorry to disappoint you; but you signed articles for all the cruise, you know, and I fear I can't let you go. I'd be one hand short, you see."

"That you would not, sir, for there is Billy Ibsen, as good a seaman, I believe, as ever 'auled taut a lee main brace, and he'll be 'appy to exchange."

"Well then, Smith, if that's the case, and the subst.i.tute is suitable, I mustn't throw any obstacles in your way."

And so all ended well. Ibsen proved fit, and Smith went on sh.o.r.e. When the _Flora_ sailed away he was the last man visible, standing on an eminence waving a red bandanna, with the girl of his choice standing modestly by his side.

Little did this island la.s.sie think when the ship hove in sight that it was bringing her a lover and a husband.

But although rare at Tristan Da Cunha, the young ladies of that solitary rock, in the midst of the Atlantic broad and wild, do sometimes count upon the possibility of such an event, and may be heard singing:

"He's coming from the north that will marry me, He's coming from the north, and oh happy I will be, With a broad-sword by his side and a buckle on his knee, And I know it, oh, I know it, that he'll marry me".

But the Tristan Da Cunha people are moral and good, and although they have no parson on board they have services on Sunday. As to marriage--well, the governor does the splicing, and it is considered quite as binding as if the ceremony had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Southward now they sailed away in a delightful breeze, and when the sun was slowly sinking towards the western sea, the weird wee island of Tristan appeared but as a hazy cloud far away on the northern horizon.

So strange a place our young heroes had never visited before, and for many days it seemed but an island of dreamland.

But that island, readers, is still there amidst its waste of waters, and it is within the kaleidoscope of events, that some of you may yet visit its iron-bound and surf-beaten sh.o.r.es.

Who knows?

CHAPTER V.--JOHNNIE SHINGLES AND OLD MR. PEN.

South, straight south. South as the bird flies. And with a fair and spanking breeze too. As for birds--once past the rocky and volcanic island of Diego Alvarez, few indeed bore them company. I believe anybody might have this rocky place who had a mind to. They found it to be the home of myriads--clouds, in fact--of gulls of every sort, including the well-known Cape pigeon, the puffin, the penguin, and albatross, to say nothing of the cormorant, and that strange, strange creature on its wondrous wings, that lives in the sky most of its time, and even goes to sleep as it soars high above the clouds--the frigate-bird.

They went near enough to the island to witness one of the strangest sights in nature--the bird-laden rocks. There was little chance of landing on the island itself, owing to the terrible surf that beats for ever and aye around the cliffs; but Ibsen, who turned out to be a real handy fellow, had been here before, and pointed out to the captain some rocks in the lee of which a boat could land, and--this being spring in these regions--soon find enough eggs to keep the crew in food for a month. His knowledge was taken advantage of, and a boat under his guidance called away.

In it went Duncan and Frank.

What a scene! It beats imagination. Tier after tier on the rocky cliffs sat those birds watching their nests and eggs.

They found a little cove in the tiny islet, and at the head of this the boat was beached on the dark sand. The ground was everywhere so crowded with nests that it was with difficulty they could walk amongst them without doing damage.

How beautiful they were too! Of every shade of blue and green, with the strangest of jet-black markings, were most of them.

But the king penguins did not cohabit with any of the gull families.

They thought themselves far too aristocratic for this, and here, as on other lonely isles of the great southern ocean, they dwelt in a colony all by themselves, which must have numbered about one thousand all told.

This colony had footpaths leading down to the shallowest parts of the sh.o.r.e, whence these droll birds could easily take to the water.

They are really droll, whether walking, standing, running, or swimming.

They stand quite erect on their st.u.r.dy legs, so that a line dropped from their beaks would almost fall between their broad webbed feet. Wings they have none, a pair of broad flappers doing duty for these, which seems to aid considerably their progress in running. But these flappers are really paddles or oars in the water, and I know of few birds that can swim so fast or turn so quickly in the sea.

On the arrival of the boat's crew there was a general panic among this community. As regards the male birds, tall as they were, they did not show a very great amount of courage.

_Sauve qui peut_ was their motto, and let the females take care of themselves. Like the pigs in New Testament times, when the cast-out devils got leave to go into them, they ran headlong down a steep place into the sea. Their motions as they waddled and scurried along, oftentimes tumbling over a stone or a tussock heap, were grotesque in the extreme, and everyone roared with laughter.

With the exception of little Johnnie Shingles. I'm sure I cannot tell you how he came to be called Johnnie Shingles, for pet names grow on board ship just as they do on sh.o.r.e. Johnnie was picked up somewhere abroad, and was looked upon as part and parcel of the good barque _Flora M'Vayne_. He was a n.i.g.g.e.r of purest, blackest breed, probably four feet four inches high, and in age something between nine and nineteen. n.o.body knew and n.o.body cared. Johnnie Shingles was just Johnnie Shingles, no more and no less. Well, he couldn't have been much less. He was very funny, however, and consequently a favourite with everybody on board, from Mate Morgan to the monkey. His duty on board was really to be at the beck and call of all hands, and to clean and feed the pets, including Viking, the red-tailed gray parrot, and Jim the ape.

Well, you see, Johnnie was never allowed to land from the boat like any of the crew, but as soon as he came within reasonable distance of the sh.o.r.e he was simply thrown overboard, and left to struggle in through the surf as best he could.

But Johnnie didn't mind the surf much, and he didn't mind the sharks.

Nor do I think the sharks minded Johnnie. In fact, my knowledge of sharks generally causes me to come to the conclusion, that they are somewhat particular in their tastes, and much prefer a white man to a black.

Well, at this islet, Johnnie Shingles was as usual pitched ceremoniously into the water, when about seventy yards from the landing-place. But as ill-luck would have it he met the whole shoal of male penguins putting out to sea. These birds are extremely bold and audacious in the water.

"Hillo!" one of the foremost shouted or seemed to shout, "here goes another o' them. Let us all pitch into him!"

And suiting the action to the word they seized poor Johnnie by the seat of his white ducks and dived with him under the water. Johnnie got up, but only to be seized by another, while half a dozen at least dabbed and pecked at him, till, had he been a white boy, he would have been black and blue.

I believe that if, in answer to his shrieks the boat had not put back, and laid those penguins dead with their oars right and left, poor Johnnie Shingles would have lost the number of his mess. Even after the angry king penguins had been routed nothing could for a time be seen of the little n.i.g.g.e.r boy. But presently up popped a penguin, and close behind it up popped Johnnie.

He came up smiling, as prize-fighters say, but he had got that penguin by the hind-leg all the same, and kick as it would Johnnie held fast till he and it were landed all alive in the boat.