Middy and Ensign Part 3

"Really, doctor, I think you do the man an injustice. He is a very superior, well educated fellow; and it has often puzzled me how he became a private soldier."

"Scamp!" said the doctor, shortly. "Some runaway or another. The ranks of the army are made a receptacle for blackguards!"

"Hang it, doctor!" cried the young captain, warmly, "I cannot sit here and listen to such heresy. I confess that we do get some scoundrels into the army; but as a rule our privates are a thoroughly trustworthy set of fellows, ready to go through fire and water for their officers; and I only wish the country would make better provision for them when their best days are past."

"Ah, that's right enough," said the doctor; "they are all what you say, and they do deserve better treatment of their country. I mean, ha, ha, ha! to make teetotallers of them this trip. I'm not going to have the men poisoned with that red hot country arrack, I can tell them."

"It is terrible stuff, I believe."

"Terrible? It's liquid poison, sir! and I don't know that I sha'n't try and set up a private brewery of my own, so as to supply the poor fellows with a decent gla.s.s of beer."

"Poor fellows! eh, doctor? Why, you said just now they were a set of scoundrels."

"Well, well, well; I didn't mean all. But look at that fellow Sim-- there's a pretty rascal for you! He's always on the sick-list, and it's nearly always sham."

"I'm afraid he is a bit of a black sheep," said Captain Smithers.

"Inky black, Smithers, inky black. I shall poison that fellow some day.

But I say, my dear boy, the brewery."

"What about it?"

"What about it? Why, it would be splendid. I mean to say it is a grand idea. I'll get the major to let me do it."

"My dear doctor," said Captain Smithers, laughing, "I'm afraid if you did brew some beer, and supply it to the men, fancy would go such a long way that they would find medicinal qualities in it, and refuse to drink a drop."

"Then they would be a set of confoundedly ungrateful scoundrels," said the doctor, angrily, "for I should only use malt and hops."

"And never serve it as you did the coffee that day, doctor?"

"Well, well, I suppose I must take the credit of that. I did doctor it a little; but it was only with an astringent corrective, to keep the poor boys from suffering from too much fruit."

"Poor boys! eh, doctor? Come, come, you don't think my brave lads are a set of scoundrels then?"

"I said before, not all--not all," replied the doctor.

"Ah, doctor," said Captain Smithers, "like a good many more of us, you say more than you mean sometimes, and I know you have the welfare of the men at heart."

"Not I, my lad, not I. It's all pure selfishness; I don't care a pin about the rascals. All I want is to keep them quite well, so that they may not have to come bothering me, when I want my time to go botanising; that's all."

"And so we have fewer men on the sick-list than any regiment out here?"

"Tut! tut! Nonsense!"

Just then the ladies came up from the princ.i.p.al cabin, and began to walk slowly up and down the quarter-deck, evidently enjoying the delicious coolness of the night air, and the beauty of the sea and sky.

Captain Smithers sat watching them intently for a time, and then, as he happened to turn his head, he caught sight of the sentry, Adam Gray, and it struck him that he, too, was attentively watching the group of ladies. So convinced did the young officer become of this, that he could not refrain from watching him.

Once or twice he thought it was only fancy, but at last he felt sure; and a strange angry sensation sprang up in his breast as he saw the sentry's countenance change when the ladies pa.s.sed him.

"An insolent scoundrel!" he muttered. "How dare he?"

Then, as the ladies took their seats at some distance, he began thinking over what the doctor had said, and wondering whether this man, in whom he had heretofore taken a great deal of interest, was such a coward; and in spite of his angry feelings, he could only come to the conclusion that the doctor was wrong.

But at the same time what he had heard and seen that evening had not been without its effect, and he found himself irritable and vexed against this man, while his previous good feelings seemed to be completely swept away.

At last he rose impatiently, and strolled towards where the ladies were sitting, and joined in the conversation that was going on round a bucket of water that the doctor had just had dipped from over the side, and which he had displayed, full of brilliantly shining points of light, some of which emitted flashes as he stirred the water with his hands, or dipped gla.s.ses full of it, to hold up for the fair pa.s.sengers to see.

"All peculiar forms of jelly-fish," he said aloud, as if he were delivering a lecture, "and all possessing the power of emitting that beautiful phosph.o.r.escent light. There you see, ladies, if I had a spoon I could skim it off the top of this bucket of water, just like so much golden cream, and pour it into a gla.s.s. Very wonderful, is it not?"

"Look, look, doctor!" said one of the ladies, pointing to the sea, where a series of vivid flashes rapidly followed one another.

"Yes, my dear, I see," he replied; "that was some fish darting through the water, and disturbing the medusae. If you watch you can see the same thing going on all round."

So glorious was the aspect of the sea that the conversation gradually ceased, and all on the quarter-deck watched the ever-widening lines of golden water that parted at the stem of the corvette and gradually died away, or were mingled with the glistening foam churned up by the propeller.

For the sea seemed to be one blaze of soft lambent light, that flashed angrily wherever it was disturbed by the steamer, or the startled fish, that dashed away on every side as they swiftly ran on towards the land of swamp and jungle, of nipah and betel palm, where the rivers were bordered by mangroves, the home of the crocodile; a land where the night's conversation had roused up thoughts of its being perhaps the burial-place of many a one of the brave hearts throbbing within the timbers of that stout ship--hearts that were to play active parts in the adventurous scenes to come.

CHAPTER THREE.

DOCTOR BOLTER CURES ONE PATIENT, AND IS LEFT WITH ANOTHER.

"Is that Parang, that dim light out yonder, captain?" said the major, pointing to what looked like a cloud touching the water.

"Oh, no," was the reply. "That is part of Sumatra. Our destination lies off the other bow, due east from where we are lying now."

It was a glorious morning, and the sun at that early hour had not yet attained to its greater power. The ladies were on deck, enjoying the morning air; the soldiers were having morning parade, and looked clean and smart in their white clothes and puggarees. The sailors were giving the last touches to bra.s.s rails and cabin windows, and were coiling ropes into neat rings; and altogether the deck of the "Startler," with its burnished guns, presented a bright and animated spectacle, every one seeming to have some business on hand.

There was a little bit bustle about the steerage ladder, where four sailors were hauling a sick man up on deck; and as soon as they had him lying in the sunshine upon a mattress, the doctor bustled up--Bob Roberts, seeing Ensign Long at hand, going up and looking on, after the two youths had exchanged a short distant nod.

"Well, Sim," said the doctor, briskly, "how are you this morning?"

"Very--very bad, sir," replied the invalid, a big bony-faced man, who looked very yellow.

"Put out your tongue," said the doctor.

Private Sim put out such an enormously long tongue that Bob Roberts gave his trousers a hitch, and made believe to haul it forth by the yard, very much to the ensign's disgust.

"That'll do," said the doctor, feeling the patient's pulse, and then dropping the hand, "Now what am I to prescribe for you, Sim, eh? You feel a terrible sense of sinking, don't you?"

"Yes, sir; terrible."

"As if you needed strengthening food?"

"Yes, sir."

"And some kind of stimulating drink--say wine?"