Fitz the Filibuster Part 31

"'Cept 'bacca," said the boatswain, "and they wouldn't take that. And even if they would, we couldn't afford to waste it on fish as most likely wouldn't be good to eat. You catches fishes off these coasts as is painted up like parrots--red, and green, and yaller, and blue; but they are about as bad as pison.--Getting warmer, Bob?"

"Bit," said the man addressed.

"So'm I.--Tell the lads to keep their ears open, Mr Poole, for breakers. There may be shoal water anywhere, and we don't want to run into them."

"You think it's likely, then," said Fitz, "that we may reach the sh.o.r.e?"

"Oh yes, sir; we might, you know; and if we did I dare say you young gents would find it an uninhabited island where you could play at Robinson Crusoe till a ship come and took us off. What do you say to that?"

"Nothing," said Fitz. "I want the daylight to come, and a sight of the _Silver Teal_."

"Same here, sir. My word, I'm beginning to feel like wishing we had got the Camel here, though he would be no good without the galley and his tools. Not a bad chap to have, though, Mr Poole, if we was to land in a sort of Robinson Crusoe island. There's worse messmates at a time like that than a chap as can knock up decent wittles out of nothing; make a good pot of soup out of a flannel-shirt and an old shoe, and roast meat out of them k.n.o.bs and things like cork-blocks as you find growing on trees. Some of them cookie chaps too, like the Camel, are precious keen about the nose, long-headed and knowing. Old Andy is an out-and-out clever chap at picking out things as is good to eat. I had a ramble with him once up country in Trinidad. He was a regular wunner at finding out different kinds of plants. 'Look 'ere,' he says, 'if you pull this up it's got a root something like a parsnep whose grandfather had been a beet.' And then he showed me some more things creeping up the trees like them flowers at home in the gardens, wonvuluses, as they call them, only he called them yams, and he poked one out with his stick, and yam it was--a great, big, black, thick, rooty thing, like a big tater as had been stretched. Andy said as no fellow as had brains in his head ought to starve out in a foreign land; and that's useful to know, Mr Poole and Mr Burnett, sir. Come in handy if we have to do the Robinson Crusoe for a spell.--Keep it up, young gents," he whispered; "the lads like to hear us talk.--'That's all very fine, Andy,' I says," he continued, aloud, "'but what about water? Whether you are aboard your ship or whether you are in a strange land, you must have plenty of water in your casks!' 'Find a river,' he says. 'But suppose you can't,' says I. 'Open your snickersee,' says he, 'and dig a hole right down till you come to it. And if there aren't none, then use your eyes.' 'Why, you can't drink your eyes,' I says, 'and I'd rather have sea-water any day than tears.' 'Use them,' he says; 'I didn't say drink 'em. Look about. Why, in these 'ere foreign countries there's p.r.i.c.kly plants with long spikes to them to keep the wild beasts from meddling with them, so as they shall be ready for human beings; and then all you have got to do is to rub or singe the spikes off and they're chock-full of water--juice, if you like to call it so--only it's got no taste. Then there's plahnts with a spunful of water in their jyntes where the leaves come out, and orkard plahnts like young pitchers or sorter shucks with lids to keep the birds off, and a lot of water in the bottom of them, besides fruits and pumpkin things. Oh, a fellow can rub along right enough if he likes to try. I could manage; I know that.'

And I believe he could, gentlemen, and that's what makes me say as the Camel would be just the right sort of fellow to have with us now, him and old Chips, so long as old Chips had got his basket of traps; not as he would stand still if he hadn't, for he's just the fellow, if he has no tools, as would set to and make some."

And the night gradually wore on, with the men taking their turns at rowing. The boatswain and Bob Jackson both declared themselves to be as dry as a bone, and what with talking and setting despair at defiance, they went on and on through the great silence and darkness that hovered together over the mighty deep, till all at once the boatswain startled Fitz by turning quite suddenly and saying to him--

"There aren't no farmyard and a stable handy, sir, to give us what we want. Could you make shift to do it?"

"To do what?" said Fitz wonderingly. "Crow like a c.o.c.k, sir. It's just the right time now."

"You don't mean to say it's morning, b.u.t.ters?"

"No, sir; it's Natur' as is a-doing that. You've got your back to it.

Turn round and look behind you. That's the east."

Both lads wrenched themselves round upon the thwart where they sat, to gaze back over the sea and catch the first glimpse of the faint dawn with its promises of hope and life, and the end of the terrible night through which they had pa.s.sed.

And after the manner of the tropics, the broad daylight was not long in coming, followed by the first glint of the sun, which, as it sent a long line of ruddy gold over the surface of the sea, lit up one little speck of light miles upon miles to the north of where they lay.

Fitz Burnett was the first to make it out, but before he could speak the boatswain had seen it too, and broke out with--

"Three cheers, my lads. Put all you know into it, hearty. There lies the _Teal_. Can you see the skipper, Mr Poole, sir?"

"See my father?" cried the lad. "No! What do you mean?"

"Ah, you want practice, sir. You ought to see him with your young eyes.

He's there on deck somewhere with that double-barrelled spygla.s.s of his, on the look-out for this 'ere boat."

"Perhaps so," said Poole quietly, "and I suppose that's one of the _Teal's_ sails; but it's only half as big as a pocket-handkerchief folded into twenty-four."

Two hours later they were on board, for it had not been long before the double-barrelled spygla.s.s had picked them out.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

ON THE WRONG SIDE.

An anxious look-out had been kept up all through those early hours on board both schooner and boat, for during the long delay caused by the accident, it seemed highly probable that as the gunboat did not come in sight she must have pa.s.sed them in the darkness, gone on, and hence might at any moment come into view.

A man was sent up to the cross-trees, and a sharp look-out was kept up as well from the deck for the missing crew who were got safely on board, and the schooner sailed away towards the south and west, and still with no danger in sight.

"You've given me a bad night, young fellows," said the skipper, as he stood looking on at the lads enjoying their morning meal, one over which the Camel seemed to have taken extra pains, showing his large front teeth with a smile of satisfaction as he brought it in relays of newly-made hot cakes, before retiring to slip fresh slices of bacon in the pan.

"Yes, father," said Poole; "but see what a night we had!"

"Ah, but yours was merely physical, my boy; mine was mental."

"I thought ours was both; eh, Burnett?" said Poole, laughing.

"Oh, yes, it was," cried the middy. "You don't know what a night we had, Captain Reed."

"Well, I suppose you did not have a very pleasant time, my lads.--Oh, here's Mr Burgess. Well, they don't seem much the worse for it, do they? Nothing in sight?"

"No, nothing. I don't think she could have followed us out. Have you any more to say to me about the course?"

"No," said the skipper. "I think we pretty well understand about the bearings as given in the letter. The Don put it all down pretty clearly, and in very decent English too."

Fitz looked up sharply, for the mention of the letter brought to mind the light fishing-boat with the bird-wing-like lateen sail and the rapidity with which the bearer of the despatch delivered it to the skipper and went overboard again.

Captain Reed noticed the boy's inquiring look, and said quietly--

"Perhaps we had better say no more about that with an enemy present."

Fitz was in the act of helping himself to some more of the hot bread, but at the skipper's words he flushed warmly, put down the cake without taking out of it a semi-circular bite, and rose from his seat.

"I don't wish to play the spy, sir," he said haughtily. "I will go on deck till you have finished your business."

"Sit down!" cried the skipper. "Sit down! What a young pepper-castor you are! Mayn't a man think what he likes in his own cabin?"

"Certainly, sir; but of course I cannot help feeling that I am an intruder."

"That's just what I feel, my boy, for coming in and disturbing you at your meal. Sit down, I say. If anybody is going to leave the room, I am that person; but I am not going to leave my cabin, so I tell you."

The skipper gave his son a peculiar look, his eyes twinkling the while.

"Think we can trust Mr Burnett here?" he said.

Fitz gave a start.

"Oh yes, father. He won't go and tell tales. He won't have a chance.

What was in that letter?"

"Just a few lines, my boy, to say that everything was going very wrong at present, and begging me whatever I did to keep the schooner's cargo out of Villarayo's hands, and to join Ramon as soon as I possibly can."

"But where, father? Both the towns are in the enemy's hands."

"At his hacienda at the mouth of the Oltec River."