Jack at Sea Part 36

"Let me have one oar, Lenny," he said. "I want to try and learn to row."

"Rather too hot for you, won't it be, sir?" said the man, smiling.

"It is hot; but I can leave off if I'm tired," replied Jack.

"Here you are then, sir," said the man; "I'm stroke, and you bow, so you take your time from me, and hittings in the back don't count fair."

The next minute they were rowing slowly back toward the yacht, with the doctor looking on very silent and thoughtful, as he furtively watched the young oarsman.

"Boat ahoy!" came at last from the yacht's deck. "What sport? Caught anything?"

Jack answered in the familiar old way in which fishermen do reply to that question.

"_No_!"

"Tired, Jack?" said his father, as the boat grazed the yacht's side.

"A little--not much," replied the lad; and he sprang on deck actively enough, and ready for the dinner which was to follow in due course.

"Brayvo! Mr Jack, sir!" said Edward, who had followed him to his cabin. "I never see anything like the way you're going on now. It's grand, that it is."

"Look here, Ned," cried the boy, flushing; "do you want to offend me?"

"Offend you, sir? Why, of course not. I said it to please you."

"Well, it doesn't please me a bit," cried Jack. "I don't like flattery, so don't do it again."

"Why, that ain't flattery, sir," cried the man indignantly; "that's plain honest truth, sir, and it was because I felt so proud of you."

"Why?" said Jack sharply.

"Because of what you used to be a bit ago, sir. Why, a couple of months back I wouldn't have believed it, for you were just like a great--"

The man's tongue had run away with him, and he now pulled up short.

"Well, like a great what?" said Jack.

The man set his teeth hard and compressed his lips now it was too late.

"Why don't you speak, sir?"

"Beg pardon, Mr Jack, sir," stammered the man.

"I know what you were going to say," cried Jack angrily. "You were going to say that I was like a great girl. Now then--the truth. You were going to say that, were you not?"

"Well, sir?"

"Speak out, or I'll never believe in you again, Ned."

"Don't say that, Mr Jack, sir. I didn't mean to make you cross. I only spoke because I was so proud to see you picking up so, and getting to be such a man."

"A man now!" cried Jack sharply. "You were going to say a great girl a little while ago."

Edward was silent.

"Once more, will you speak out frankly?" cried Jack.

"Yes, sir, that was it, sir," said Edward hastily. "Wish I'd held my tongue, but it would come."

"Like a great girl, eh?"

"Well, sir, I can't help it, sir. You did seem more like a young lady in those times. But you're as different as can be now, sir. You really aren't like the same."

"That will do," said Jack. "You can go now."

"Yes, sir," said the man with alacrity; "but you won't leave me behind another time, sir, for speaking out so free?"

"Wait and see," said Jack shortly; and the man was obliged to content himself with that reply, and left the cabin.

"My word, he is getting a Tartar," said Edward to himself as he went to his own quarters. "Fancy him dropping on to me like that! Well, it's a change; and after all he's better so than being such a molly as he was."

"Like a great girl--like a great girl," muttered Jack as soon as he was alone. "To say that to me! How it shows what people must have thought.

It was quite time there was a change. But I wonder what they all think of me now."

A burning sensation made him turn to the gla.s.s, to see that his face was growing brown, while in each of his cheeks there was a bright spot.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

JACK SEES A VOLCANO LIGHT UP.

"Is there going to be any wind to-night, captain?" said Sir John as they went on deck. For answer the captain pointed away to the west, and Jack saw here and there dark patches of rippled water, but the sails that were left still hung motionless from the yards.

"In half-an-hour we shall be bowling along, Mr Jack," said the mate; "and if the wind holds, before morning we shall be lying off the land."

"Then I think I shall sit up," said the lad eagerly, for his brain was buzzing with expectation, and as full of exaggerated imaginations as it could possibly be.

But with the nightfall, in spite of the inspiriting, cooling breeze which sent them, as the mate had it, "bowling along," there was the familiar sensation of fatigue, and at the usual time, after a long look out into the darkness, Jack went to his cot, to dream that the island was getting farther and farther off, and woke up at last with the sensation that he had only just lain down.

For a few minutes he was too sleepy and confused to think, but all at once the recollection of what he expected to see came to him, and he leaped out of his berth and ran to the cabin window, but from thence he could only see the long level plain of water.

Hurriedly dressing himself, he ran on deck, to see that the dawn was only just appearing in the east, and as they lay to, rocking gently, with the sails flapping, there rose up before him, dim and dark, one vast pyramid which ran up into the heavy clouds, and filled him with a strange sensation of awe, the greater that there was a heavy booming sound as of thunder right and left and close at hand.

He grasped the fact directly after that it was not the low muttering of thunder which he heard, but the booming of the heavy billows which curved over about a couple of miles away and broke upon a reef which extended to right and left as far as the dim light would let him see.

Then came a sense of disappointment which was almost painful. Had they sailed by without stopping at any of the lovely islands they had encountered, to come to this awfully gloomy-looking spot in the ocean?

The captain must be half mad to speak so highly in its favour, and for a few moments the boy felt disposed to return to his berth and try to forget his disappointment in sleep.