The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 57

"Go on, Pickle! Go on!" cried Uncle Paul.

"Oh, I haven't much more to say, uncle, only this--if ordinary captains are so particular about speaking, and so afraid of ridicule, wouldn't a big scientific man like the Count, who has fitted out an expedition for the discovery, be very careful too, lest the object of his voyage should get about? But oh, nonsense! It's ridiculous. It can't be that.

Don't laugh at me, uncle. It's only what I thought."

"I was not going to laugh at you, Rodney, my boy," said the doctor quietly, "for the simple reason that I do not see anything to laugh at.

It's a very clever, good idea, and quite possible. Yes, my boy, it's more than possible. I don't say that you are right, but very likely to be. The Count and his son are French, and, like their countrymen, very touchy and sensitive and afraid of ridicule. I shouldn't be at all surprised, my boy, if that really is the reason for their being so secretive in their ways."

"I am glad you think so, uncle," cried the boy.

"No, no, no; don't take it like that. It may be after all only a fancy of yours."

"Yes, uncle, but if that's what they are searching for, to prove that there are such--such--er--what-you-may-call-'ems in the sea--"

"Phenomena, boy--phenomena," said the doctor shortly.

"Yes, uncle; phenomena--wouldn't it be an act of kindness to tell them that we have already made the discovery, and try to show them the part of the ocean where such creatures are to be found?"

"Hum! No, my boy. No. We should be making matters worse. Not only should we be showing the Count and his son that we have found out what they want to keep secret, but we should be robbing them of the honour of their discovery as well. No; let them take us into their confidence if they like, and if they do, so much the better. If they do not--well, the loss is theirs."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

COAST LAND.

"Our skipper's as right as can be, Morny," said Rodd the next evening, as the lad was once more on board the schooner, and they were sailing gently along about a mile from sh.o.r.e, the brig following pretty close behind with the water streaming down from her scuppers as the work at one of the pumps was still kept up.

For there was the coast, much as he had described, an undulating line of the singular dark green mangrove forest that looked low and dwarfed, and, now that the tide was low, showed to full advantage, the singular ramification of its roots giving the bushy forest the appearance of standing up upon a wilderness of jagged and tangled scaffolding through which the sea washed over the muddy sh.o.r.e.

"Not pleasant-looking, gentlemen," said the skipper, coming up to them.

"Not the sort of place where you would like to settle down and build a country house."

"Why, it's horrible," cried Rodd. "But why should it be so muddy here, instead of being all nice clean sand?"

"Because it's the edge of a low swampy country, my lad, where great rivers come from inland and bring down the soil of thousands of miles."

"But I always thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions were roving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo and places like that."

"Yes, my lad," said the skipper; "but that's the Africa of the old books, and there's plenty of it like that on the east side and up in the north and where old Mungo Park went to, no doubt; but all along this coast it isn't a dry and thirsty land, but as soon as you get through the mangroves, full of great forests and big rivers. Why, look at the sea here. Right away out it was all as clear as crystal; now here there's mud enough for anything."

"But we shan't want to stop long in a muddy river with banks like this, captain," said Morny.

"Don't you be in too great a hurry to judge, sir," said the skipper. "I have sailed up one or two of these rivers in my time, and when you get higher up you will find it very different: big forests with grand trees, rivers with fine water, and places beautiful enough for anything, such as will satisfy travellers who don't want ports and towns. You and the doctor, Mr Rodd, will be able to get some fine shooting up there, if you like, and fine fishing too. Do you want to get any birds of all the colours of the rainbow?"

"Why, of course!" cried Rodd eagerly.

"Well, there you'll find them, sir--singing birds too, green and gold and scarlet and grey, and some with long tails, and some with short.

Only," continued the skipper dryly, and with a grim smile at the two lads, "they don't sing like our birds at home, but in a foreign lingo, all squeak and scream and squawk, through their having crooked hook beaks. They are what people at home call parrots and parakeets."

"Oh, that's what you mean!" cried Rodd, laughing.

"Of course, sir--them as you teaches to talk. Wicked 'uns, some of them, ready enough to learn anything the sailors teach them, but sulky as slugs when you want them to learn anything good."

"But there are plenty of them, captain?" said Rodd.

"Thicker than crows at home, sir. Then what do you say to monkeys?"

"That I should like to see them alive in the forest."

"Well, there you have them, sir; and you could come across plenty, if you went far enough, big as boys."

"Ah, now you are telling travellers' tales, captain," said Rodd.

"Nay, my lad, not I. I have seen them as big as boys, only not so tall, because their legs have all gone into arms. Little, short, crooked legs, they have got, as makes them squatty. But when they stand up their arms are so long that they nearly touch the ground. Big as boys?

Why, they are bigger! I never saw boys with such big heads. And they all look as if they had been born old; wrinkled faces and long s.h.a.ggy black hair."

"Now, look here, captain, I don't mind you joking me, but don't play tricks with the Viscount here."

"Not I, my lad. I am just telling you the honest truth, and you may believe me."

"But where's the river where these things are?"

"We shall come across one of them before long, sir," said the skipper.

"I expected to have found one that suited my book hours ago. I was very nearly going up that one just about dinner-time."

"Oh, but that was only a little inlet," said Rodd.

"Looked so to you, sir, but all along here the sh.o.r.e's full of inlets, as you call them; but they are deep water and go winding in and out, and perhaps open out into big sheets of water like lagoons, as they call them. But I am of opinion that if we don't turn into one to-night we shall do so some time to-morrow, and perhaps find just the sort of spot we want. It we don't we will go a bit farther south."

"But take us up beyond all this horrible mangrove swamp," said Rodd.

"You leave that to me, sir," said the skipper. "We have got a good bit of work to do with that brig, and I want to bring my lads out again, and the Count's too, well and hearty, not half of them eaten up with fever and t'other half sucked into dry skins by the mosquitoes. No, we shall have to sail right up to where it gets to be a forest and park-like country."

"There'll be no towns?" said Rodd.

"No, sir, but we might come across a blacks' village, and if we do we can anchor somewhere on the other sh.o.r.e."

Another afternoon had come before the mangrove forest seemed to turn inland and run right up the country, just as if they had come to the end of that portion of the land; but miles away the skipper pointed out that the forest began again and also swept inland, while by using the gla.s.s the lads were able to trace the configuration of the coast, and saw that the two lines of coast north and south came together away east.

"There," said the skipper, "what do you say to this for the mouth of a big river?"

"River?" said the doctor, coming up.

"Yes, sir--or estuary, which you like. This is the sort of one that will suit us, though as far as I can make out it is not down in my chart. So all the more likely to suit our book."

"But do you think it's a river, and not a bend of the coast?" asked the doctor.

"If it was a bend of the coast, sir, the tide wouldn't be flowing in like that. It's a good-sized tidal river, sir, and we are going to sail in as far as we can get before dark, and if all turns out as I expect, we shall be carried in past the mangroves and be able to moor to-night perhaps to forest trees."