The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 48

The officer smiled.

"I cannot explain," he said. "There was not time. I had work to do--a task that I had promised to fulfil, and we held on till it was forced upon me that I must get another vessel or stand with my men upon the deck and let our brave _Roi Dagobert_ sink beneath our feet."

"That wasn't her name at Havre," said the downright skipper.

"No, sir," said the officer, smiling; "but were we not pursued? Would not news of our escape be sent far and wide? We were obliged to a.s.sume another disguise. The _Jeanne d'Arc_, we said, sank at Havre. That is the _Roi Dagobert_ floating still; but for how long?"

"I don't quite see that," said the skipper bluntly.

"No?" said the officer. "Monsieur has never pa.s.sed long years as a prisoner of war."

"Well, no," grunted the skipper. "Maybe that might have made me a bit shifty."

"There, sir," said the officer, turning now to Uncle Paul; "that is my excuse for this desperate venture--this attempt to seize your vessel.

My business is urgent. I am a n.o.bleman, a count of the French Empire, and I offer you any recompense you like to name if you will give up to me your vessel, leaving me full command for a week--a month--such time as I may need."

"And if I say, sir, that I cannot accede to what you must own are wild demands," said Uncle Paul, "what then?"

"What then?" said the officer slowly.

"You mean that you will attack us, and the strongest wins?"

The officer was silent, and he turned his eyes upon his son, who left Rodd and took his extended hands, both standing silent for a few moments.

"No, sir," he said at last, slowly and gravely. "Neither my son nor I can raise our hands against those who gave us liberty, almost life.

Morny, my boy, we will do our duty to the last, and try to keep the poor _Roi Dagobert_ afloat. She may live long enough, even as she has kept afloat so long. If she sinks with us--well, my boy, we shall have done our duty to him we serve, and our names may not be forgotten in our country's rolls."

There was silence for a few moments, which was broken at last by Rodd.

"But I say, uncle," he cried eagerly, "you always said you had plenty of time, and--"

The young officer turned quickly upon the speaker with an eager questioning look, but before Uncle Paul could speak, Captain Chubb took off his cap and stood scratching his head in the now bright morning sunshine.

"Look here, Mr Count," he said; "I am only a rough Englishman, and a lot of what you have been saying about mission and that sort of thing is just so much Greek to me. But do you mean to tell me that you got a ball through the bottom of your smart brig that night in Havre, and have never been able to stop the leak?"

"Yes, yes; that is so, my friend. My chief officer has tried everything that he could do, but we could not get at the place. And look yonder!

The pump has been kept going ever since."

"Well, sir," continued Captain Chubb, "I don't know your first mate, and I don't want to say hard things of a man who could take that there smart craft out of the French harbour as he did that night. He is a very fine sailor, sir. But if I aren't got a carpenter on board this schooner as would give him ninety out of a hundred and then beat him, without bringing to work the little bit I knows myself, why, I'm a Dutchman, and that I aren't."

"Ah!" cried the Count excitedly. "You think--"

"No, sir; I don't say I think anything without having a look. But as there don't seem to be any fighting going on, and you and the doctor here turns out to be old friends, why, before you talk of throwing up your job and taking to your boats--which would be a much more sensible thing to do than going down with colours flying when there warn't no need, and setting aside getting some fresh water and provisions into your boats and making for a place on the West Afric coast--I should just like to come on board your craft with my man and see what mightn't be done by stopping that there leak."

"My friend!" cried the Count excitedly, and he caught the skipper by the hands.

"Well, sir," said the skipper, with a grim smile, "if you are Mr Rodd's and the doctor's friend and wants to be friends with me, why, Tom Chubb aren't the man to say no and want to keep enemies. So there's my fin.

But look 'ere, you know," he continued, as he gave the Count's thin white hand a tremendous grip, "yours was a very queer way of coming upon us, and might have meant some nasty marks on my white decks. You can't help being a Frenchman, but do you know what an Englishman would have done? He'd have just come here civil like and said, 'Look here, strangers, we have sprung a leak, and we are going down. Come and lend us a hand at the pumps.'"

"Ah, yes, of course," said the Count warmly. "It is what I should have done."

"And you would like me to come aboard and see if there's anything we can do?"

"Yes, yes!" cried the Count eagerly.

"All right, then, sir," said the skipper coolly; "I am sailing under the doctor's orders, and if he's willing, I'm your man."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A SHIP SURGEON.

"Well, Mr Rodd, sir," said Captain Chubb, as he and the lad stood watching the regular dip of oars in the brig's two boats as they glided back over the tranquil sea to where their vessel lay motionless in the calm. "Well, Mr Rodd, sir, don't you wish you'd been born a Frenchman?"

"No," cried the boy sharply. "I am thankful I was born English."

"And so you ought to be, my lad. Of all the crackbrained, sentimental, outrageous chaps I ever met there's none of them comes up to a Frenchman."

"Oh, you are too bad, Captain Chubb."

"Too bad, eh? Why, aren't they always kicking up a dust and making revolutions, cutting off their kings' and queens' heads, and then going to war with all the world, with their Napoleons and Bonapartes and all the rest of them? Call themselves men!"

"Why, you are as bad as uncle," cried Rodd merrily. "You and he ought to be always the best of friends. But, if you speak fairly you must own that they are very gallant men."

"Gallant men!" cried the skipper scornfully. "I don't call them men. I call them monkeys! Men! Butchers, as cut off the head of their beautiful Queen Mary What-you-may-call-it, and then after shedding blood like that, sending no end of poor women who never did them a bit of harm to that guillotine. I'd be ashamed of myself, Mr Rodd, to take their part."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Rodd warmly. "I say that the Count and his son have proved themselves to be very brave fellows. Why, you owned as much yourself about the way in which they escaped with the brig."

"Oh, that was right enough," grumbled the skipper.

"I am not going to deny," continued Rodd, "that there are plenty of horrible wretches amongst the French. And that Revolution was awful; but haven't we plenty of bad men amongst the English?"

The skipper chuckled.

"Well, yes, we have had some pretty tidy ones, if you come to read your histories. But I don't know so much about those chaps being brave. It was a very clever bit of seamanship, mind you, that taking the brig out in the teeth of the storm with hardly room to tack. I am not a bad pilot in my way when I like to try, but I will be honest over it; I daren't have tried that job. It was a very clean thing. But look here, my lad. It's no use for you to try and crack that up, because him who did it must have been as mad as a hatter, and between ourselves, that's what I think that Count is."

"Oh, fudge, captain!" cried Rodd. "No more mad than you or I."

"Well, I can answer for myself, my lad," said the skipper, with a chuckle, "but that's more than I'd do for you, for you do some precious outrageous things sometimes."

"I?" cried Rodd.

"Yes, you, my lad."

"What a shame!" cried Rodd indignantly. "I defy you to prove that I have done anything that you could call mad. Now tell me something.

What have you ever known me do that wasn't sensible?"