Bunyip Land | Page 7

him to the door, and I saw her try to make him a present, he shook his head sturdily.
"No, no," he growled; "I asked my price for the trip, and the doctor there paid me like a man. Don't you be afeared for young chap there while he's aboard my craft. While he's with me I'll look after him as if he was gold. I don't like boys as a rule, for they're a worrit and wants so much kicking before you can make 'em work, but I've kind of took to youngster there, and I'll see him through. Good night."
The captain went clumping down the stairs, and we could hear him clearing his throat very loudly down the street. Then the doctor, with great delicacy, rose and left us alone, and I tried to look cheerful as I sat for an hour with my mother before going to bed.
Did any of you who tried to look cheerful when you were going to leave home for the first time ever succeed, especially with those wistful, longing eyes watching you so earnestly all the time? I'm not ashamed to say that I did not, and that I almost repented of my decision, seeing as I did what pain I was causing.
But I knew directly after that it was pain mingled with pleasure, and that I was about to do my duty as a son.
Twice over, as I lay half sleeping, I fancied I saw, or really did see, somebody gliding away from my bedside, and then all at once I found that it was morning, and I got up, had a miserable breakfast, which seemed to choke me, and soon after--how I don't know, for it all seemed very dream-like--found myself on the wharf with my mother, waiting for the boat that was to take us three travellers to the ship.
Jimmy was there, looking rather uncomfortable in his sailor's suit, which was not constructed for the use of a man who always sat down upon his heels. The doctor was there, too, quiet and cheerful as could be, and I made an effort to swallow something that troubled me, and which I thought must be somehow connected with my breakfast. But it would not go down, and I could do nothing but gaze hard as through a mist at the little delicate woman who was holding so tightly to my hands. There was a dimness and an unreality about everything. Things seemed to be going on in a way I did not understand, and I quite started at last as somebody seemed to say, "Good-bye," and I found myself in the little boat and on the way to the schooner.
Then all in the same dim, misty way I found myself aboard, watching the wharf where my mother was standing with a lady friend, both waving their handkerchiefs. Then the wharf seemed to be slowly gliding away and getting more and more distant, and then mixed up with it all came the sound of the bluff captain's voice, shouting orders to the men, who were hurrying about the deck.
Suddenly I started, for the doctor had laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"We're off, Joe," he said heartily; "the campaign has begun. Now, then, how do you feel for your work?"
His words electrified me, and I exclaimed excitedly:
"Ready, doctor, ready. We'll find him and bring him back."
CHAPTER THREE.
HOW I MADE MY FIRST CHARGE WITH A LANCE.
We had not been a day at sea before our black follower was in trouble. As a matter of course the men began joking and teasing him about the awkward manner in which he wore his sailor's suit, asking him if it wouldn't be better to have a coat of white paint over him instead, as being cooler and less trouble, and the like.
All this Jimmy took with the greatest of equanimity, grasping the men's meaning very well, and very often throwing himself flat on the deck and squirming about, which was his way of showing his delight. But it was absolutely necessary that all this banter should come from the Englishmen. If one of the Malay sailors attempted such a familiarity, Jimmy was furious.
"Hi--wup--wup!" he exclaimed to me after one of these bouts; "dirty fellow, brown fellow no good. Not white fellow, not black fellow. Bad for nothing."
One afternoon the doctor and I were sitting forward watching the beautiful heaving waves, and talking over the plans we intended to follow when we landed, and we had agreed that a small party was far more likely to succeed than a large one, being more suitable for passing unnoticed through the country. We had just arrived at the point of determining that we would engage six natives at a friendly shore village to carry our baggage and act as guides,