Syd Belton Part 36

At night, though, he began to acquire a little practical seamanship, calling upon the bo'sun, a most willing teacher, to impart all he could take in, in these brief lessons, about the masts, yards, sails, stays, and ropes. He went aloft, and being eager and quick, picked up a vast amount of information of a useful kind, Barney knowing nothing that was not of utility.

"Never had no time for being polished, Master Syd," he would say, "but lor me, what a treat it is to get back among the hemp and canvas! I never used to think when I was splicing a graft on a tree that I should come to splicing 'board ship again. When are you coming on deck again in the day-time?"

"Not till I look decent, Barney."

"Beg pardon, sir."

"Bo'sun, then."

"Thankye, sir."

The week had pa.s.sed, and the next day the ship was clear of its dockyard artisans. Shipwrights, riggers, and the rest of them had gone, and leaving the painting to be done by his crew during calms, the captain received his orders, the frigate was unmoored, and Syd watched from one of the little windows the receding waves, becoming more and more conscious of the fact that there was wind at work and tide in motion.

The time went on, and he knew that there was the land on one side and a verdant island on the other, but somehow he did not admire them, and when Roylance came to him in high glee to call him to dinner, with the announcement that there were roast chickens and roast leg of pork as a wind-up before coming down to biscuit and salt junk, Syd said he would not come.

"But chickens, man--chickens roast."

"Don't care for roast chickens," said Syd.

"Roast pork then, and sage and onions."

"Oh, I say, don't!" cried Syd, with a shudder.

"Well, I must go, or I shan't get a morsel," cried Roylance, and he hurried away.

"How horrible!" thought the boy. "I do believe I'm going to be sea-sick, just like any other stupid person who goes a voyage for the first time."

Before evening the frigate had pa.s.sed high chalk bluffs on the left, and on the right a wide bay, with soft yellow sandy sh.o.r.e. Then there was chalk to right and the open channel to left; then long ranges of limestone cliffs, dotted with sea-birds, and then evening and the land growing distant, the waves rising and falling, and as he went to his hammock that night Syd uttered a groan.

"What's the matter, lad?" cried Roylance, who was below.

"Bad," said Syd, laconically.

"Nonsense! make a bold fight of it."

"Fight?" cried Syd; "why Baby Jenks could thrash me now. How long shall I be ill?"

"Well, if it gets rough, as it promises to, I dare say you'll have a week of it."

"A week?" groaned Syd.

Then some time after, to himself, between bad paroxysms of misery--

"Never mind," he said; "by the time I am able to go on deck again I shall look fit to be seen."

It was about a couple of hours later, when the frigate had got beyond a great point which jutted out into the sea, and began to stretch away for the ocean, that Syd awakened to the fact that the vessel seemed to be having a game with him. She glided up and up, bearing him tenderly and gently as it were up to the top of a hill of water, and then, after holding him there for a moment, she dived down and left him, with a horrible sensation of falling that grew worse as the wind increased, and the _Sirius_ heeled over.

"I wonder whether, if I made a good brave effort, I could master this giddy weak sensation," thought the boy. "I'll try."

He made his effort--a good, bold, brave effort--and then he lay down and did not try to make any more efforts for a week, when after pa.s.sing through what seemed to be endless misery, during which he lay helplessly in his hammock, listening to the creaking of the ship's timbers and the rumble that went on overhead, and often thinking that the ship was diving down into the sea never to come up again, he was aroused by a gruff voice, which sounded like Barney Strake's. It was very dark, and he felt too ill to open his eyes, but he spoke and said--

"Is that you, bo'sun?"

"Ay, ay, my lad; me it is. Come, rouse and bit."

"I couldn't, Barney," said Syd, feebly. "The very thought of a bit of anything makes me feel worse."

"Yah! not it; and I didn't mean eat; I meant turn out, have a good wash, and dress, and come on deck."

"I should die if I tried."

"Die, lad? What, you? Any one would think you was ill."

"I am, horribly."

"Yah! nonsense! On'y squirmy. Weather's calming down now, and you'll be all right."

"No, Barney; never any more," sighed Syd. "I say."

"Ay, my lad. What is it?"

"Will they bury me at sea, Barney?"

"Haw--haw--haw!" laughed the bo'sun. "He thinks he's going to die!

Why, Master Syd, I did think you had a better heart."

"You don't know how ill I am," said the boy, feebly.

"Yes I do, zackly. I've seen lots bad like you, on'y it arn't bad, but doing you good."

"No, Barney; you don't know," said Syd, a little more forcibly.

"Why, you haven't been so bad as my Pan-y-mar was till I cured him."

"Did you cure him?" said Syd, beginning to take more interest in the bo'sun's words.

"Ay, my lad, in quarter of an hour."

"Do you think you could cure me, Barney? I don't want to die just yet."

"On'y hark at him."

"But do you think you could cure me?"

"Course I could, my lad; but I mustn't. You've get the doctor to see you. Don't he do you no good?"

"No, Barney; he only laughed at me--like you did."

"'Nough to make him, lad. You're not bad."