Maori and Settler Part 6

"It is not a thing to joke about," Marion went on earnestly. "It may seem very little to you, Mr. Atherton, but it is everything to us."

"Don't you know that one always jokes when one is serious, Miss Renshaw?

You know that in church any little thing that you would scarcely notice at any other time makes you inclined to laugh. Some day in the far distance, when you become a woman, you will know the truth of the saying, that smiles and tears are very close to each other."

"I am getting to be a woman now," Marion said with some dignity; for Mr.

Atherton always persisted in treating her as if she were a child, which, as she was nearly seventeen, was a standing grievance to her.

"Age does not make a woman, Miss Renshaw. I saw you skipping three days ago with little Kate Mitford and your brother and young Allen, and you enjoyed it as much as any of them."

"We were trying which could keep up the longest," Marion said; "Wilfrid and I against the other two. You were looking on, and I believe you would have liked to have skipped too."

"I think I should," Mr. Atherton agreed. "You young people do not skip half as well as we used to when I was a boy; and I should have given you a lesson if I had not been afraid of shaking the ship's timbers to pieces."

"How absurd you are, Mr. Atherton!" Marion said pettishly. "Of course you are not thin, but you always talk of yourself as if you were something monstrous."

Mr. Atherton laughed. His diversion had had the desired effect, and had led them away from the subject of the fight on sh.o.r.e.

"There is a galley putting off from sh.o.r.e with a lot of officials on board," the captain said, coming up at this moment. "They are rowing to the next ship, and I suppose they will visit us next."

A quarter of an hour later the galley came alongside, and three officials mounted the gangway. The captain went forward to meet them.

"Is there anything I can do for you, gentlemen?"

"There has been a crime committed on sh.o.r.e," the leader of the party said, "and it is suspected that some of those concerned in the matter are on board one of the ships in the harbour. I have authority to make a strict search on board each."

"You are perfectly welcome to do so, sir," the captain said. "One of our officers will show you over the ship."

"I must trouble you to show me your list of pa.s.sengers and crew, and to muster the men on deck. But first I must ask you, Did any of your boats return on board late?"

"No," the captain replied. "Our last boat was hauled up to the davits at half-past nine. There was a heavy day's work before the men to-day, and I therefore refused leave on sh.o.r.e."

The men were ordered to be mustered, and while they were collecting the second-mate went round the ship with the officials, and they saw that no one was below in his berth. The men's names were called over from the list, and the officials satisfied that all were present and in good health.

"Now for the pa.s.sengers," he said

"I cannot ask them to muster," the captain observed, "but I will walk round with you and point out those on the list. There are some eight or ten on sh.o.r.e. They will doubtless be off to lunch; and if you leave an officer on board he will see that they are by no means the sort of people to take part in such an affair as that which has happened on sh.o.r.e."

The officials went round the deck, but saw nothing whatever to excite their suspicion. Marion Renshaw was laughing and talking with Mr.

Atherton, Miss Mitford walking up and down the p.o.o.p in conversation with James Allen. After they had finished their investigations, the officials left one of their party to inspect the remaining pa.s.sengers as they came on board, and to check them off the list. They then again took their seats in the galley and were rowed to the next ship.

By dint of great exertions the cargo was got out by sunset, the sails were at once loosened and the anchor weighed, and before the short twilight had faded away the _Flying Scud_ was making her way with a gentle breeze towards the mouth of the harbour.

"We are well out of that," Mr. Atherton said as he looked back at the lights of the city.

"I think you are very well out of it indeed, in more senses than one,"

said the surgeon, who was standing next to him; "but you have had a wonderfully close shave of it, Mr. Atherton. Another inch and either of those blows might have been fatal. Besides, had you been detained for a month or six weeks, it is as likely as not that, what with the heat and what with the annoyance, your wound would have taken a bad turn. Now, you must let me exercise my authority and order you to your berth immediately. You ought not to have been out of it. Of the two evils, getting up and detention, I chose the least; but I should be glad now if you would go off at once. If you do not, I can a.s.sure you I may have you on my hands all the rest of the voyage."

"I will obey orders, doctor. The more willingly because for the last hour or two my back has been smarting unmercifully. I do not feel the other wound much."

"That is because you have been sitting still. You will find it hurt you when you come to walk. Please go down carefully; a sudden movement might start your wounds again."

It was two or three days before Mr. Atherton again appeared on deck. His left arm was bandaged tightly to his body so as to prevent any movement of the shoulder-blade, and he walked stiffly to the deck-chair, which had been piled with cushions in readiness.

"I am glad to be out again, Mrs. Renshaw," Mr. Atherton said as she arranged the cushions to suit him. "Your husband, with Wilfrid and the two Allens, have kept me company, one or other of them, all the time, so I cannot say I have been dull. But it was much hotter below than it is here. However, I know the doctor was right in keeping me below, for the slightest movement gave me a great deal of pain. However, the wounds are going on nicely, and I hope by the time we get to Buenos Ayres I shall be fit for a trip on sh.o.r.e again."

"I hardly think so, Mr. Atherton; for if the weather continues as it is now--it is a nice steady breeze, and we have been running ever since we left Rio--I think we shall be there long before you are fit to go ash.o.r.e."

"I do not particularly care about it," Mr. Atherton said. "Buenos Ayres is not like Rio, but is for the most part quite a modern town, and even in situation has little to recommend it. Besides, we shall be so far off that there will be no running backwards and forwards between the ship and the sh.o.r.e as there was at Rio. Of course it depends a good deal on the amount of the water coming down the river, but vessels sometimes have to anchor twelve miles above the town."

"I am sure I have no desire to go ash.o.r.e," Mrs. Renshaw said, "and after the narrow escape Wilfrid had at Rio I should be glad if he did not set foot there again until we arrive at the end of the voyage."

"He is not likely to get into a sc.r.a.pe again," Mr. Atherton said. "Of course it would have been wiser not to have stopped so late as they did in a town of whose ways they knew nothing; but you may be sure he will be careful another time. Besides, I fancy from what I have heard things are better managed there, and the population are more peaceable and orderly than at Rio. But, indeed, such an adventure as that which befell them might very well have happened to any stranger wandering late at night in the slums of any of our English seaports."

There was a general feeling of disappointment among the pa.s.sengers when the _Flying Scud_ dropped anchor in the turbid waters of the La Plata.

The sh.o.r.e was some five or six miles away, and was low and uninteresting. The towers and spires of the churches of Buenos Ayres were plainly visible, but of the town itself little could be seen. As soon as the anchor was dropped the captain's gig was lowered, and he started for sh.o.r.e to make arrangements for landing the cargo. The next morning a steam tug brought out several flats, and the work of unloading commenced. A few pa.s.sengers went ash.o.r.e in the tug, but none of the Renshaws left the ship. Two days sufficed for getting out the goods for Buenos Ayres. The pa.s.sengers who had been staying at hotels on sh.o.r.e came off with the last tug to the ship. Their stay ash.o.r.e had been a pleasant one, and they liked the town, which, in point of cleanliness and order, they considered to be in advance of Rio.

CHAPTER V.

A BOAT EXPEDITION.

"Well I am not sorry we are off again," Marion Renshaw said as the men ran round with the capstan bars and the anchor came up from the shallow water. "What a contrast between this and Rio!"

"It is, indeed," Mr. Atherton, who was standing beside her, replied. "I own I should have liked to spend six months in a snug little craft going up the La Plata and Parana, especially the latter. The La Plata runs through a comparatively flat and--I will not say unfertile country, because it is fertile enough, but--a country deficient in trees, and offering but small attraction to a botanist; but the Parana flows north.

Paraguay is a country but little visited by Europeans, and ought to be well worth investigation; but, as you say, I am glad enough to be out of this shallow water. In a short time we shall be looking out our wraps again. We shall want our warmest things for doubling Cape Horn, or rather what is called doubling Cape Horn, because in point of fact we do not double it at all."

"Do you mean we do not go round it?" Marion asked in surprise.

"We may, and we may not, Miss Renshaw. It will depend upon the weather, I suppose; but most vessels now go through the Straits which separate Cape Horn itself from Tierra del Fuego."

"Those are the Straits of Magellan, are they not?"

"Oh, no!" Mr. Atherton replied. "The Straits of Magellan lie still further to the north, and separate Tierra del Fuego from the mainland. I wish that we were going through them, for I believe the scenery is magnificent."

"But if they lie further north that must surely be our shortest way, so why should we not go through them?"

"If we were in a steamer we might do so, Miss Renshaw; but the channels are so narrow and intricate, and the tides and currents run with such violence, that sailing-vessels hardly ever attempt the pa.s.sage. The straits we shall go through lie between Tierra del Fuego and the group of islands of which the Horn is the most southerly."

"Is the country inhabited?"

"Yes, by races of the most debased savages, with whom, I can a.s.sure you, I have no desire whatever to make any personal acquaintance."

"Not even to collect botanical specimens, Mr. Atherton?" the girl asked, smiling.

"Not even for that purpose, Miss Renshaw. I will do a good deal in pursuance of my favourite hobby, but I draw the line at the savages of Tierra del Fuego. Very few white men have ever fallen into their hands and lived to tell the tale, and certainly I should have no chance whatever."

"Why would you have less chance than other people, Mr. Atherton?"