The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 56

"Can you make it out, Rodd?" cried Uncle Paul, who had hurried on deck with the Count.

"Well, I can just see something, uncle, and I suppose it's land."

"Oh, that's right enough, my lad," cried the captain. "Can't be anything else."

"Not clouds?"

"Ah, I don't say that," cried the skipper. "You may see a bit of haze too, but there's solid land beneath. There, sir," continued the skipper, "that's what we are looking for. Now the next thing we want to see is water."

"Well, we can see that plainly enough, Joe," said Rodd, speaking with his eyes still to the gla.s.s.

"Ay, but he means dirty water, sir."

"What do you want to see dirty water for?"

"Muddy, then, sir, showing as there's a river coming out there. I say, sir, wouldn't t'other young gent like to come up and have a squint?"

"Oh, of course. I forgot. Below there! Morny! Come on up and have a look."

The lad sprang to the main shrouds and began to hurry up, while Joe Cross, who had finished the task to achieve which he had been sent, began to lower himself down, leaving s.p.a.ce for the young Frenchman, to whom the gla.s.s was handed in turn, ready for him to declare that he could make out the distant land.

"Ah," he panted, as he handed back the gla.s.s, "how I have longed to see that! Now, Rodd, we shall soon get the brig careened over and the leaks repaired, and then--"

"Well," said Rodd, "what then?"

"Be off to sea again," cried Morny excitedly.

"Well, you seem in a precious hurry," grumbled Rodd.

"Wouldn't you be if your schooner was like our brig?"

"No. Uncle and I are reckoning upon making a lot of discoveries ash.o.r.e.

If you are on a scientific expedition, wouldn't that do as well for you?"

"No," replied the French lad shortly. "We must follow out our researches by sea."

"Then what is it you are looking for? I thought you were going to tell me the other day."

"Yes, my father," cried Morny, answering a hail from below. "I am coming down."

When the two lads descended it was to find that the Count had been speaking to the skipper, who had given orders for the schooner's boat to be lowered so that the two visitors could return at once to the brig, with the understanding that both vessels were to send up studding sails and use every possible speed now to get within touch of the sh.o.r.e, before making south and keeping a bright look-out for some estuary or river mouth.

"You will follow me, sir," said the skipper; "but do you know what this coast line will be like?"

"I cannot say I do," replied the Count. "Cliff and hill, with mountains farther in?"

"Nay, sir; all muddy sh.o.r.e, covered with dark green mangrove forest. I don't suppose we shall be long before I send you up a signal; and then we can sail right in. There will be nothing to mind in the way of rocks, for where I lead it will be all mud."

Very shortly afterwards the lads parted, and as Rodd stood looking after the boat that was bearing their two visitors to the brig, Uncle Paul came up close behind him.

"Pity those two were born Frenchmen, Rodd, my boy," said the doctor, "for there is something very gentlemanly about the Count, and I like that lad Morny too. There is something about him, Rodney, that you might very well copy."

"Is there, uncle?"

"Yes, sir, there is. Certainly. I am not your father, but I am your uncle, and it gratifies me very much to see the polished, almost reverent way in which that lad behaves towards the Count. It's polite, and it's respectful, and it's--er--it's--er--"

"Why, you wouldn't like it, uncle, if I were to behave to you just as he does to the Count."

"Well, not exactly, Rodney, but there's something very nice about it.

Great pity, though, that they are French, and so corroded, so crusted over, as I may call it, with a sort of hero-worship for that tyrannical usurper. There, I won't mention his name."

"That's right, uncle; don't, please."

"Why, sir?"

"Because it always makes you so cross, uncle."

"Now, Rodney, that's what I don't like. If I have an antipathy to a scoundrel, and speak out firmly as an Englishman should, it is not for a boy like you to say I am cross; and I am quite sure that young Morny would have had too much common-sense to speak out like that to his father. It is a great pity, though, that they are both, as I say, so eaten up with that hero-worship, and I am very much afraid that I spoke a little too plainly to the Count to-day. It was rather unfortunate too. It was just when we had been having a very interesting conversation upon the medusae, especially those of a phosph.o.r.escent nature. By the way, has Morny said much to you about the object of their research?"

"No, uncle. He always seems disinclined to speak."

"Humph! Yes, he does seem very reticent. His father as good as said, as I think I told you, that this was a voyage of discovery, a search for something he wanted to take back, and which was to make his country very great. But he has never said what, and it would be so very ungentlemanly to seem curious."

"But you do feel curious to know, don't you, uncle?"

"Well, I must confess, my boy, that I do--a little jealous, perhaps, of another man's success, for I did learn as much as this, that he felt pretty sure of being successful if he could get the brig sound again.

Well, I suppose we shall know some day."

"I don't like to say any more to Morny, uncle. It would seem so small; and besides, he never questions me anything about what we are doing-- only seems very much interested."

"You are quite right, Rodd. It would be mean and petty. Leave it to them, and if they like to take us into their confidence, well and good.

If they do not, well, it is no business of ours."

"Why, uncle," cried Rodd suddenly, and then he stopped. "It isn't because--"

Rodd stopped short again, looking straight away over the sea, as if in deep thought.

"Well, my boy? It isn't because what?"

"Oh, I don't like to say, uncle. You would laugh at me."

"How do you know that? Wait and see," cried Uncle Paul. "Now then, what were you thinking?"

"I was wondering whether they could be trying to discover that which we found quite by accident."

"That which we found quite by accident, Pickle?"

"Yes, uncle, and that may be the reason why they don't like to talk about it. You see, all ships' captains and people have been so laughed at, and told that they are inventing fables, that they are very quiet and like to keep things to themselves, just the same as Captain Chubb was when we saw that thing. You see, uncle--"