Sail Ho! Part 66

"Well then, that warmint yonder said it ought to be put in the soup, and so they settled it.

"'Two can play at that game,' I says, and I listened till they spoke so low that I opened the light a bit wider, and it slipped out of my hands and went down bang. So I nipped back to set alongside o' Tommy here, and my gentleman comes up to peep, sees me right away, and goes back again. I thought perhaps they'd give it up then, but I kep' my eyes open, and bimeby I sees my nipper here come to you with three tins, and he tells you what to do with them.

"'All right,' I says, 'I can see through that dodge,' so I lays low and waits my chance, empties the tin of soup you'd put aside into a pan, and then pours the one you were going to use into the one you'd set aside, and that out of the pan into the tin, but I washed it out first, and put it ready for you to use."

"You couldn't; I was here all the time," said the cook, angrily.

"Oh, was you? Didn't go round to the back to fetch taters, did you?"

"Of course. I forgot."

"Ah, that's right," continued the man. "But I warn't satisfied then, for I says to myself, 'Them poor beggars down below won't get the dose now, but I should like t'others to have a taste;' and to make sure as they did, I takes the tin as you'd got the lumps o' meat in, pours out all the pieces and fills it up from the tin they'd doctored, and filled it up again with the juice I'd poured out; now I says to myself, whichever lot they have'll give 'em what they meant for some one else-- and so it did. My word, they mixed it pretty strong."

"Why, the tins were wet and sticky!" cried the cook.

"Course they was, mate; I had to be in such a hurry for fear of your coming back."

"And I couldn't make out about that pan."

"Hadn't time to wash it, messmate."

"Then I gave the lads down below the soup the cabin was to have had?"

"You did."

"And them in the cabin the soup and kangaroo they'd physicked?"

"That's so, matey, and their games are over again. You'll jyne us, won't you?"

"I? Join you?" faltered the cook, looking across at me; "here, what are you going to do?"

"Let the lads out again. It's their turn now."

And just then the men in the forecastle finished a chorus and began to cheer.

"I shall wake up from this dream directly," I remember thinking, but I did not, for all was black, and I was in the deepest sleep that I ever had in my long life.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

Hot! So hot that I could hardly breathe, and so dark that I could not see across the cabin. My head ached, and I was terribly sleepy, with a heavy, unsatisfied drowsiness, which kept me from stirring, though I longed to get out of my cot and go and open the window, and at the same time have a good drink from the water-bottle.

I was lying on my brick, and there was the impression upon me that I had been having bad dreams, during the pa.s.sing of which I had been in great trouble of some kind, but what that trouble was I could not tell; and as soon as I tried to think, my brain felt as if it was hot and dry, and rolling slowly from side to side of my skull.

I was very uncomfortable and moved a little, but it made my head throb so that I was glad to lie still again and wait till the throbbing grew less violent.

"It all comes of sleeping in a cabin in these hot lat.i.tudes with the window closed. Mr Frewen ought to know better," I thought, "being a doctor. I'll tell him of it as soon as he wakes."

This is how I mused, thinking all the time how foolish I was not to get up and open the window, but still feeling no more ready to cool the stifling air of the cabin.

"What makes men snore so?" I thought then, and began to wonder how it was that so gentlemanly a man as the doctor should make such a noise in his sleep. I had never heard him do so before. As a rule he lay down, closed his eyes, and went off fast, breathing as softly as a baby till he woke in the morning. Now his breathing was what doctors call stertorous, heavy and oppressed.

"Oh, how I wish he would wake up and open the window!" I thought; but he did not wake up nor cease breathing so heavily, and I lay thinking about coming to bed on the previous night. That is to say, I lay trying to think about coming to bed, for I could not recall anything. I had some dreamy notion of its having been my watch; but whether I had taken it, or whether it was yet to come and some one was due to rouse me up soon, I could not tell.

"It's all due to having such a headache," I thought, "and of course through this horrid air. Why doesn't he wake up and open the window?"

How long that lasted I cannot tell, but it must have been for some time, during which my brain burned and my thoughts came in a horribly confused manner. I could hear the sounds on deck, and feel that the ship was careening over with the breeze, but these facts suggested nothing to me, and I must have been in quite a stupor, when I was roused by a voice saying angrily--

"Well, what is it?"

I knew the voice from its rough harsh tones, and I lay waiting for some one to answer, but there was no reply, and all was blacker and hotter than ever, when there came the peculiar smacking noise of one pa.s.sing his tongue over his dry lips, and once more he spoke.

"D'yer hear, what is it?"

There was no reply, and it seemed to me that the speaker was settling himself down to go to sleep again, for he moved uneasily.

"What did yer say, Neb?"

I had not heard Neb Dumlow say anything, and I wondered why I had not, for I did not think I had been to sleep. But I felt that I must have been, or I should have heard.

"Mussy me, what a head I've got!" muttered the voice. "Did the gents give us some rum?"

There was a pause.

"Must ha' done, but I don't recklect. Why, it must ha' been a whole lot."

My head must have been growing less confused, for now I began to be puzzled about how it was that Bob Hampton was sleeping in our cabin instead of just under shelter with the others at the entrance of the saloon. It was very strange, but I was too stupid to arrange things.

Once I wondered whether I really was in the cabin along with Mr Frewen, but I got no farther with that line of reasoning, and I was sinking back into my stupor or lethargy when Bob Hampton spoke again.

"Here, Neb--Barney, open something, and let's have some fresh air. My, how hot!"

He had a headache too then, and could hardly breathe for the hot closeness of the place. This roused me, and I lay thinking how strange it was that he should be just as much indisposed as I was to move. But he was a fore-mast man and I was an officer, so I had only to speak to be obeyed, and after making two or three efforts which only resulted in a dull muttering sound, Bob Hampton exclaimed--

"Here, whatcher talking about? Who is it, and what do you want?"

"I say, open the window, Bob, and let's have some fresh air."

There was a quick rustling movement close by me, as if some one had risen upon his elbow, and he exclaimed--

"What d'yer say?"

"Open the window, Bob; I'm half-stifled."

"So'm I, my lad. Here, what's the matter? What are you doing here?"

"No," I said; "what are you doing here in the cabin, Bob?"

"I arn't in the cabin, my lad, and you arn't in the cabin, for this arn't in it, and--Here, I say, what's up?"