The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 36

You, Cross, take charge of the gun, and well sponge her out. You others, pikes; fall in. Now then, right face. March!"

"I'm disappointed," said the doctor, as the men were marched off. "I should have liked to have had a closer examination of that creature.

Well, captain, what next?"

"Tea," said the skipper bluntly.

The tropics were very near, and the night began to come on rapidly, so that the tea meal was partaken of by the light of the swinging lamp.

But before it was over the moon rose above the sea very bright and silvery, and getting rapidly near the full, while later on as it rose higher it was nearly as light as day.

Rodd was anxious to get on deck again, to see if by any possibility the weird-looking object that they had seen that evening might rise to the surface; but anxious as he was to join the sailors and question them as to whether they had seen anything more, the conversation between his uncle and the skipper kept him below, where he listened to their different expressed opinions.

At last, though, he went on deck, and found all the men grouped together forward, and whispering to themselves about the visitor they had seen.

One man said it was a sign, and another grunted, while a third turned to Joe Cross to ask his opinion.

It was the stout heavy member of the crew who went by the name of the Bun, and seeming the most impressed of the whole crew he asked Joe Cross as above.

"Yes," said Cross slowly, "you are quite right, Ikey Gregg. It's a sign."

"What's a sign?" asked Rodd, coming up.

"The--the--Bun--Ikey Gregg says it is a sign, sir, that we see that big squirming wormy thing, and I says he's quite right, sir. It is a sign."

"Why, what can it be a sign of, Joe?"

"Sea's calm, sir, and that brings all the shoals of young fish up to the top to feed, and that there thing that feeds on them come up to the top to get a regular tuck out."

"Oh, that won't do," said Gregg the fat. "Things like that only come up to the top at particular times, and you mark my words, it means a storm."

As the man finished, he turned his eyes to right and left, scanning the beautiful silvery water before him, and then uttering a loud yell, he dashed by his companions, made for the forecastle hatch, and without troubling himself about the steps, leaped right down.

"What's the matter with Ikey?" said one of the men. "Showing us how he can jump?"

"Nonsense!" said Rodd. "It was as if he had been scared by something.

He looked quite wild."

The boy walked close up to the rail and looked over, to see that the whole of the water right away from the bows was apparently ablaze with fire; but for a time he could make out nothing else, in spite of its crystal clearness and the way in which in addition it was laced and latticed as it were by the rays of the moon.

Seeing nothing for the moment likely to have alarmed the sailor, he was about to turn off, but only to start the next minute, and stand clinging with both hands to the rail, for some fifteen or twenty yards away the erst calm, heaving sea began to be violently agitated, running as it were with the swiftness of a mill-stream; and then something dull and glistening and shining like a halo appeared just beneath the surface, rising till it was quite clear of the water, and pa.s.sing the schooner in one broad pale streak.

He was too much astonished to be startled, and for a few moments the only idea that he could form was that a good-sized vessel had careened over on to its side and was swiftly gliding along almost level with the water.

Then all at once something of the same moonlit glistening tint, but long and sinuous, slowly rose up eight or ten feet above the sea; then higher and higher till it was double that alt.i.tude, and in his excitement and agitation he realised that it was ended or begun by a snake-like head something after the fashion of that of a huge conger, the eyes being many inches across and dull and heavy after the fashion seen in a deep-sea fish.

One moment he thought it eel-like, the next that it was some serpent, while to his utter astonishment what he took to be its neck rose higher in a graceful swan-like shape, beautiful in curve as it was horrible in its gleaming, pallid, slimy aspect. One of the great eyes seemed turned to him with a peculiar glare, while as he fixed his own upon it as if unable to resist the attraction, he made out that from behind the curve the elongated body of the creature rose just above the surface, carrying out the semblance on a great scale to some swan-like half-fishy creature, and then with a quick rush as if the water were being hurled from it by enormously powerful fin-like paddles, the strange fish, reptile, or whatever it was, had pa.s.sed on into the hazy moonlit night and was gone.

"Hullo here! Anything the matter, Rodd?" cried the familiar voice of Dr Robson, as he came quickly forward, followed by the skipper. "Where is it?"

"Where is it, uncle?" faltered the boy.

"Yes; that man Cross came running down to us in the cabin to say that they had seen the sea-serpent again."

Rodd slowly raised one hand from the rail to which he had been holding, and pointed outward over the sea.

"Well," said Uncle Paul, "what are you pointing out? Plenty of moonlight, and glorious phosph.o.r.escence, but where's the sea-serpent?

Where did it show again? Why, what's the matter, boy?" he continued, catching his nephew by the arm and taking his hand. "Don't stand staring like that. Your hand's all wet, and like ice! Have you been frightened?"

"I--don't know, uncle, I suppose so," said the boy slowly and dreamily.

"I never saw anything like it before, and--and--it came so close to the schooner. I think I thought it was going to make a s.n.a.t.c.h at me and take me under water. But don't ask me now, please. I don't feel quite right. I suppose I am cowardly; but it made Gregg run away."

"Then why didn't you," said the doctor jocularly, "if it was so horrible as that?"

"I couldn't, uncle," cried the boy pa.s.sionately. "I turned cold all over and couldn't stir."

"Well, come down below for a bit," continued the doctor. "Why, Chubb, the boy's had a regular scare."

"Ah! and no wonder," said the skipper gruffly. "It scared the men too.

They saw it."

"What, the same thing that you fired at?"

"Ah, that I don't know. That was a great long eely thing; but Joe Cross here says this was more like a great turtle, with flippers and a long neck, and a head like a snake."

No more was said till they were in the cabin, where soon after he had found himself in safety, shut in and with the swinging lamp burning above his head, Rodd heaved a deep sigh and then uttered a forced laugh.

"I couldn't help it, uncle," he said, "and I didn't think I could have been such a coward; but I am all right now. The other men did see it too, didn't they?"

"Yes, my lad; they saw it too," replied the skipper; "and next time we goes ash.o.r.e, if we are stupid enough to talk about it every one will laugh and say we are making up tales for the marines. I've known skipper after skipper who has seen something of the kind in the warm seas and has told yarns about them. But men don't often do so now, no matter what they see, for one don't like to be laughed at. Well, sir, I suppose you believe there's more queer things in the sea than most people know of?"

"Well, yes," said Uncle Paul, "I am beginning to believe more and more that we who follow out natural history have a great deal to learn."

"Take my word for it, sir, you have. But I dare say you will be disposed to laugh at me and think that I am making up a bit of gammon, when I ask you if you remember what a frigate looks like when she has got all her ports open and her lanterns lit."

"I don't see why I should," said Uncle Paul quietly. "But of course I have seen a man-of-war like that by night; and a very beautiful object she is."

"Very, sir. But what should you say if I was to ask you if you had seen a fish looking like a little frigate with her ports all open and her lights shining in a couple of rows along her sides--lights that don't burn, sir, but shine brightly as if they did?"

"Well, I am not a man to laugh at anything new in science, Chubb," said the doctor quietly, "but between ourselves, your description is a bit too flowery."

"Not a bit, sir."

"I have seen," continued the doctor, "phosph.o.r.escent fish and insects, and even now, swimming round us, the sea is full of light-giving creatures, but nothing approaching your frigates with the ports open, or anything near them."

"Well, sir, I could take you right away to the eastward into the Indian seas--and I am not romancing, mind, but talking honest truth--I could take you and squire here, where you could drag up fishermen sort of fish, big-mouthed fellows ready to swallow what they catches, fish that guide themselves down in the dark deeps of the sea amongst the seaweed at the bottom, and there they hang out from the tops of their heads long barbels that look like worms, and fish with them for other fishes, to catch them to eat."

"Oh yes, that's right enough, captain," replied the doctor. "You know, Rodd, that great frog fish, the Father Lasher, as the fishermen call him. Why, captain, we have got them at home off the Devon coast."

"I know," said the skipper. "I have seen them; but those are not what I mean. He didn't give me time to finish, squire," continued the skipper, facing round to Rodd. "My ones out yonder in the Eastern seas always live down below where it's deep and dark, and where the fishes couldn't see their baits. So what do you think they do?"