The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 70

Then as daylight came again there was the busy sound of the saw, chipping of the adze, the creak of auger, and the loud echoing rap of the mallet, as some tree-nail was driven home.

On the previous evening the conversation that had gone on between the doctor and the Count had hardly ended before the Spaniard's boat, rowed by a couple of men, came as near as they could get to the brig, and one of the bare-legged men, after giving a sharp look round into the shallow water, as if in search of danger from one of the hideous reptiles on the look-out for prey, stepped over into the mud, and came up, bearing a basket of large, freshly-caught fish, which he placed in the hands of a couple of the sailors, and then stood waiting.

"Ah!" cried the doctor. "The fish the Spanish captain promised me. Our thanks to your master, and I will not forget what he wanted."

The man answered him in Spanish.

"Ah, now you are taking me out of my depth," said the doctor. "Do you speak French?"

The man shook his head.

"English, then?"

"_No comprende, senor_," replied the man hurriedly--or what sounded like it.

"Never mind, then," said the doctor. "I'll send your skipper some powder to-morrow."

The man shook his head and made signs, repeating them persistently, frowning and shaking his head.

"I think he means, uncle," cried Rodd, "that he won't go away until you have paid him in powder for the fish."

"Hang the fellow!" cried the doctor petulantly. "Why hasn't he been taught English? I don't carry canisters of gunpowder about in my pockets. Can any one make him understand that the powder is in the little magazine on the schooner?"

"What does he want? Some gunpowder?" said the Count.

"Yes. I promised him a present of a few pound canisters."

"We can get at ours," said the Count quietly, and giving an order to the French sailor who acted as his mate, the latter mounted into the brig, disappeared down the cabin hatchway, and returned in a few minutes with half-a-dozen canisters, with which the man smilingly departed, after distributing a few elaborate Spanish bows.

The weather was glorious, and all that next day good steady progress was made with the brig repairs, while Rodd and his uncle spent most of the time keeping guard over the workmen and sending crocodile after crocodile floating with the tide, to the great delight of the grinning crew of the Spaniard, who lined the new-comer's bulwarks as if they were spectators of some exhibition, and clapped their hands and shouted loud _vivas_ at every successful shot, while all the time tiny little curls of smoke rose at intervals into the sunny air as the men kept on making fresh cigarettes as each stump was thrown with a _ciss_ into the gliding stream.

"Quiet and lazy enough set, Pickle," said the doctor. "How they can bask and sleep in the sunshine! It's an easy-going life, that of theirs. Ah, there's the skipper! Fierce-looking fellow. He looks like a man who could use a knife. But you don't half read your Shakespeare, my boy."

"What's Shakespeare got to do with that fierce-looking Spaniard using his knife, uncle?"

"Only this, my boy," said the doctor, drawing the ramrod out of his double gun and trying whether the wads were well down upon the bullets, for a couple of the ugly prominences that arched over a big crocodile's eyes came slowly gliding down the stream; "I mean that a Shakespeare-reading boy clever at giving nicknames--and that you can do when you like--would have called that fellow Bottom the Weaver."

"I don't see why, uncle. Bottom the Weaver?" said the boy musingly, as he slowly raised his gun.

"No, no; stop there, Rodd! That's my shot. I saw the brute first."

"All right, uncle; only don't miss;" and the boy lowered his gun. "But who was Bottom the Weaver?"

"Tut, tut, tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor. "I say, this is a big one, Rodd--a monster."

"Here, I recollect, uncle. He was the man who was going to play lion."

"Good boy, Pickle; not so ignorant as I thought you were. Well, didn't he say he'd roar him as gently as any sucking dove, so as not to frighten the ladies?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Well, didn't our knife-armed Spaniard roar to us as gently as--"

_Bang_.

"Got him!" cried the doctor.

"No, no; a miss," cried Rodd.

_Bang_, again.

"That wasn't," said the doctor, and as the smoke drifted away there was a burst of _vivas_ again from the Spaniards as they saw their dangerous enemy writhing upon the surface with the contortions of an eel, as it turned and twined, and then lashed the water up into foam, till in a spasmodic effort it dived out of sight and was seen no more.

"Poor fellow!" said Joe Cross from the brig, in the most sympathetic of tones. "Such a fine handsome one too, Mr Rodd, sir! Talk about a smile, when he put his head out of the water, why, a tiger couldn't touch it! It must have been three times as long."

So the work went on, and the tyrants of the river perished slowly, but did not seem to shrink in numbers. But the carpentering party were able to do their work in safety, and when, after the interval for dinner had ended, Uncle Paul and his nephew carried on what Rodd called a reptilian execution, the Spaniard's crew were lying about in the sunshine asleep upon their deck. They were too idle to take any interest in the shooting, while their captain, a rather marked object in the sunshine from the bright scarlet scarf about his waist, worn to keep up his snowy white duck trousers, lay upon the top of the big three-masted schooner's deck-house with his face turned to the glowing sun, and with a cigarette always in his mouth.

"I believe he goes on smoking when he's asleep, uncle," said Rodd.

"Yes, Pickle, and if I were an artist and wanted to paint a representation of idleness, there's just the model I should select.

They are a lazy lot."

"Yes, uncle, and twice over to-day I saw them talking together, and I feel sure that they were laughing at our men because they worked."

No communication whatever took place between the strangers and the first occupants of the anchorage till after dark, when, as Rodd was leaning over the taffrail talking to Joe Cross, who said he was cooling himself down after a hot day's work, the Spaniard's boat was dimly seen putting off from the big schooner, and was rowed across, to come close alongside as Joe hailed her.

The Spanish skipper looked up, cigarette in mouth, and nodded to Rodd.

"You tell your ship-master," he said, "that I have been thinking about the birds and the spotted leopards and the big monkeys. I know a place where they swarm. Good-night!" And at a word his boat was thrust off again and rowed back towards the gangway from which they came.

"Well, let 'em swarm," said Joe Cross, as if talking to himself. "I don't mind. This 'ere's a savage country, and 'tis their nature to. He seems a rum sort of a buffer, Mr Rodd, sir. What does he mean by that?

Was it Spanish chaff?"

"Oh no, Joe. My uncle was asking him about what curiosities there are in the country. That's why he said he had been thinking about them."

"Oh, I see. But how rum things is, and how easy a man can make mistakes! Now, if I had been asked my opinion I should have said that that there was a chap as couldn't think even in Spanish; sort of a fellow as could eat, sleep and smoke, and then begin again, day after day and year after year. This is a rum sort of a world, Mr Rodd, sir, and there's all sorts of people in it. Now look at that there skipper.

He fancies hisself, he does, pretty creature! White trousers, clean shirt every morning, and a red scarf round his waist. 'Andsome he calls hisself, I suppose. He don't know that even a respectable dog as went to drink in a river and saw hisself, like that there other dog in the fable, would go and drown hisself on the spot if he found he'd a great set of brown teeth like his!"

"Ah, Joe, Spaniards are not like Englishmen."

"Oh, but I don't call him a Spaniard, sir. I've seen Spaniards--regular grand Dons, officers and gentlemen, with nothing the matter with them at all, only what they couldn't help, and that's being Spaniards instead of Englishmen. These are sort of mongrels. Some of this 'ere crew are what people call mollottoes. They are supposed to be painted white men, but payed over with a dirty tar-brush. Talk about a easy-going lot!

Why, I aren't seen one of them do a stroke of work to-day. They are in the ile trade, aren't they, sir? Palm-oil."

"Yes, Joe; I suppose so."

"Ah, that accounts for it, sir. Handling so much ile that it makes them go so easy."

The sailor burst into a long soft laugh, "What are you laughing at, Joe?"