Hunting the Skipper Part 23

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AFTER THE LESSON.

As the suffering party gathered together upon the river sh.o.r.e preparatory to embarking in the boats, Murray's first care was to see that A.B. t.i.tely was placed where he could lie down and rest, and while looking after the poor fellow, and seeing that he was one of the first to be helped into the stern sheets of the first cutter, Roberts came up.

"Oh, I say!" he cried. "Who's that wounded?"

"Hallo! Who are you?" said his fellow middy sharply. "Don't disturb the poor fellow."

"Why, eh? Yes--no," cried Roberts, with a mock display of interest, "I was wondering where--well--it can't be! Why, Frank, you do look a pretty sweep! Hardly knew you. I say: is it you?"

"Is it I, indeed!" growled Murray. "You're a pretty fellow to try that on! Go and look at your face in the water if you can find a still pool.

I might grin at you."

"Am I browned, then--scorched?"

"Are you scorched brown! No, you are scorched black! Where are your eyebrows? I say, d.i.c.k, those two little patches of hair in front of your ears that you believed were whiskers beginning to shoot--they're quite gone. No, not quite; there's a tiny bit left in front of your right ear."

The conscious lad clapped his hands up to the sides of his face.

"I say, not so bad as that, is it, Frank? No games; tell us the truth."

"Games? No, I'm too sore to be making game," cried Murray, and he gazed carefully at both sides of his messmate's cheeks. "You're scorched horribly, and the whisker shoots are all gone--No, there's about half of one left; and you'll have to shave that off, d.i.c.k, so as to balance the other bare place. No, no; it's all right; that's not hair, only a smudge of sooty cinder off your burnt cap. I say, you do look a beauty, d.i.c.k."

"Oh, I say!" groaned the youth, patting his tingling cheeks tenderly.--"Here, what are you grinning at, sir?" he cried, turning upon the wounded sailor angrily.

"Beg pardon, sir. Was I grinning?" said the sailor apologetically.

"Yes; and he can't help it, d.i.c.k. Don't be hard upon the poor fellow; he has had a spear through the top of his shoulder. But you do look an object! Enough to make a cat laugh, as they say."

"Well, I don't see that there's anything to laugh at."

"No, old fellow, because you can't see your face; but I say, you can see mine."

"Humph!" grunted Roberts sulkily, and his fingers stole up to pat the scorched portions of his face.

"Case of pot and kettle, eh, d.i.c.k?" said Murray, laughing, then pulling his face straight again as he winced with pain. "Oh, I say, don't make me grin at you again. It's just as if my skin was ready to crack all over. There, poor old chap, I'm sorry for you if you feel as bad as I do. But you began it."

"Beg pardon, then," grumbled Roberts.

"Granted. But I say, why doesn't Anderson hurry us all on board?"

"I don't know. Yes, I do," cried the midshipman excitedly. "The beggars--they must have quite escaped the fire! They're gathering together over yonder, hundreds of them, with spears. I believe they're going to make a rush. Fancy, after destroying the hornets' nest!"

"Then we shall have to kill the hornets," said Murray; and the two lads were among the first to answer to the boatswain's whistle, which now chirruped out loudly.

"Here we are, Mr Murray, sir," said Tom May, as the midshipman hurried up to his little party. "This is us, sir--your lot."

"Well, I know that," said the lad petulantly, as he winced with pain.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the man. "Thought you might take us for the n.i.g.g.e.rs, seeing what colour we are and how our clothes are tumbling off."

"Yes, we're black enough, Tom, but I hope you don't feel as I do," said his leader.

"Much of a muchness, sir," said the man, with a grin half of mischievous mirth, half of pain. "The first luff said something about hornets, sir.

I don't know much about them insecks, but we chaps feel as if we'd been among their first cousins the wopses; eh, lads?"

"Ay, ay!" growled another of the men. "But aren't we soon going to have a chance to use our stings?"

At that moment the preliminary order rang out--an order which sent a thrill through the suffering band, making them forget everything in the opportunity about to be given them for retaliation upon the advancing body of warlike blacks stealing cautiously forward from the shelter of a patch of mangroves away to the left, which had from its nearness to the margin escaped the flames.

"The savage brutes!" muttered Murray, as he drew his sword, and winced with pain.

"Hold your fire, Mr Murray," shouted the lieutenant. "Wait, my lads, till you see the whites of their eyes, and then let them have it sharply when you hear the word."

But the little volley from the midshipman's party of reserve was held longer, for the lieutenant's words had little more than pa.s.sed his lips when there was a flash, followed by what resembled a ball of grey smoke from the _Seafowl_ where she lay at anchor. Then almost instantaneously came the roar of one of the sloop's bow guns and her charge of canister shot tore through the sheltering bush-like trees, while a cheer burst from the sh.o.r.e party, discipline being forgotten in the excitement caused by what came as a surprise.

The heartily given cheer was followed by another puff of grey smoke, and the crack of shot through the sheltered trees, the effect being that the advancing party of the enemy was turned into a running crowd of fugitives scattering and running for their lives, leaving the boats'

crews to embark quite unmolested, this last example of the white man's power proving a quite sufficient lesson for the native king.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A VISIT FROM THE HORNETS.

"Upon my word, Mr Anderson," said the captain, as he had the men drawn up before him as soon as they reached the _Seafowl_--"Upon my word, sir, I am delighted. I entrust you with a couple of boats' crews to carry out a necessary duty, and you bring me back a scorched-up detachment only fit to go into hospital."

"I beg pardon, sir," said the chief officer shortly; "only one man wounded, and his injury is very slight."

"Don't talk to me like that, sir!" cried the captain. "Look at them, sir--look at them!"

"I have been looking at them, sir, for long enough--poor fellows--and I am truly sorry to have brought them back in such a state."

"I should think you are, sir! Upon my word of honour I should think you are! But what have you been about?"

"Burning out the hornets' nest, sir," said the lieutenant bluffly.

"Well, I suppose you have done that thoroughly, Mr Anderson: but at what a cost! Is there to be no end to these misfortunes? First you allow yourself to be deluded by a slave-trading American and bring the _Seafowl_ up here to be run aground, with the chance of becoming a total wreck--"

"I beg your pardon, sir!"

"Well, not total--perhaps not total, Mr Anderson; but she is in a terribly bad position."

"One from which you will easily set her at liberty."