Gascoyne, The Sandal-Wood Trader: A Tale of the Pacific by R. M. Ballantyne (read a book .TXT) 📖

returned to the charge, and was not a bit ashamed of himself.

On the present occasion, Toozle behaved like a canine lunatic, and Alice was beginning to think of exercising a little tender violence in order to restrain his superabundant glee, when another individual appeared on the scene, and for a time, at least, relieved her.

The second comer was our dark friend, Kekupoopi. She by some mischance had got separated from her young mistress, and immediately went in search of her. She found her at once, of course; for, as water finds its level, so love finds its object, without much loss of time.

"O Toozle!—bee! hee!—am dat you?" exclaimed Poopy, who was as much delighted in her way to see the dog as Alice had been.

Toozle was, in his way, as much delighted to see Poopy as he had been to see Alice;—no, we are wrong, not quite so much as that, but still extremely glad to see her, and evinced his joy by extravagant sounds and actions. He also evinced his scorn for the opinion that some foolish persons hold, namely, that black people are not as good as white, by rushing into Poopy's arms and attempting to lick her black face as he had tried to do to Alice. As the dark-skinned girl had no objection (for tastes differ, you see), and received the caresses with a quiet "Hee! hee!" Toozle was extremely gratified.

Now, it happened that Jo Bumpus, oppressed with a feeling of concern for his former captain, and with a feeling of doubt as to the stirring events in which he was an actor being waking realities, had wandered up the mountain-side in order to indulge in profound philosophical reflections.

Happening to hear the noise caused by the joyful meeting which we have just described, he turned aside to see what all the "row" could be about, and thus came unexpectedly on Alice and her friends.

About the same time it chanced (for things sometimes do happen by chance in a very remarkable way, it chanced that Will Corrie, being also much depressed about Gascoyne), resolved to take into his confidence Dick Price, the boatswain, with whom during their short voyage together he had become intimate.

He found that worthy seated on a cask at the end of the rude pile of coral rocks that formed the quay of Sandy Cove, surrounded by some of his shipmates, all of whom, as well as himself, were smoking their pipes and discussing things in general.

Corrie went forward and pulled Dick by the sleeve.

"Hallo, boy! what do you want with me?" said the boatswain.

"I want to speak to you."

"Well, lad, fire away."

"Yes, but I want you to come with me," said the boy, with an anxious and rather mysterious look.

"Very good—heave ahead," said the boatswain, getting up, and following Corrie with a peculiarly nautical roll.

After he had been led through the settlement and a considerable way up the mountain in silence, the boatswain suddenly stopped and said: "Hallo! hold on; my timbers won't stand much more o' this sort o' thing. I was built for navigatin' the seas,—I was not for cruisin' on the land. We're far enough out of ear-shot, I s'pose in this here bit of a plantation. Come, what have ye got to say to me? You ain't a goin' to tell me the Freemason's word, are ye? For, if so, don't trouble yourself; I wouldn't listen to it on no account w'atever. It's too mysterious, that is, for me."

"Dick Price," said Corrie, looking up in the face of the seaman, with a serious expression that was not often seen on his round countenance, "you're a man."

The boatswain looked down at the youthful visage in some surprise.

"Well, I s'pose I am," said he, stroking his beard complacently.

"And you know what it is to be misunderstood, misjudged, don't you?"

"Well, now I come to think on it, I believe I have had that misfortune—'specially w'en I've ordered the powder-monkeys to make less noise; for them younkers never do seem to understand me. As for misjudgin', I've often an' over again heard 'em say I was the crossest feller they ever did meet with; but they never was more out in their reckoning."

Corrie did not smile; he did not betray the smallest symptom of power either to appreciate or to indulge in jocularity at that moment. But feeling that it was useless to appeal to the former experience of the boatswain, he changed his plan of attack.

"Dick Price," said he, "it's a hard case for an innocent man to be hanged."

"So it is, boy,—oncommon hard. I once know'd a poor feller as was hanged for murderin' his old grandmother. It was afterwards found out that he never done the deed; but he was the most incorrigible thief and poacher in the whole place; so it wasn't such a mistake, after all."

"Dick Price," said Corrie, gravely, at the same time laying his hand impressively on his companion's arm, "I'm a tremendous joker—awful fond o' fun and skylarkin'."

"'Pon my word, lad, if you hadn't said so yourself, I'd scarce have believed it. You don't look like it just now, by no manner o' means."

"But I am, though," continued Corrie; "and I tell you that in order to show you that I am very, very much in earnest at this moment, and that you must give your mind to what I've got to say."

The boatswain was impressed by the fervor of the boy. He looked at him in surprise for a few seconds, then nodded his head, and said, "Fire away!"

"You know that Gascoyne is in prison!" said Corrie.

"In course I does. That's one rascally pirate less on the seas, anyhow."

"He is not so bad as you think, Dick."

"Whew!" whistled the boatswain. "You're a friend of his, are ye?"

"No, not a friend; but neither am I an enemy. You know he saved my life, and the lives of two of my friends, and of your own captain, too."

"Well, there's no denying that; but he must have been the means of takin' away more lives than what he has saved."

"No, he hasn't," cried Corrie, eagerly. "That's it, that's just the point; he has saved more than ever he took away, and he's sorry for what he has done; yet they're going to hang him. Now, I say, that's sinful—it's not just. It shan't be done, if I can prevent it; and you must help me to get him out of this scrape,—you must, indeed, Dick Price."

The boatswain was quite taken aback. He opened his eyes wide with surprise, and putting his head to one side, gazed earnestly and long at the boy, as if he had been a rare old painting.

Before he could reply, the furious barking of a dog attracted Corrie's attention. He knew it to be the voice of Toozle. Being well acquainted with the locality of Alice's tree, he at once concluded that she was there; and knowing that she would certainly side with him, and that the side she took must necessarily be the winning side, he resolved to bring Dick Price within the fascination of her influence.

"Come, follow me," said he; "we'll talk it over with a friend of mine."

The seaman followed the boy obediently, and in a few minutes stood beside Alice.

Corrie had expected to find her there, but he had not counted on meeting with Poopy and Jo Bumpus.

"Hallo, Grampus! is that you?"

"Wot! Corrie, my boy, is it yourself? Give us your flipper, small though it be. I didn't think I'd niver see ye agin, lad."

"No more did I, Grampus; it was very nearly all up with us."

"Ah, my boy!" said Bumpus, becoming suddenly very grave, "you've no notion, how near it was all up with me. Why, you won't believe it, I was all but scragged."

"Dear me! what is scragged?" inquired Alice.

"You don't mean to say you don't know!" exclaimed Bumpus.

"No, indeed, I don't."

"Why, it means being hanged. I was so near hanged, just a day or two back, that I've had an 'orrible pain in my neck ever since at the bare thought of it! But who's your friend?" said Bumpus, turning to the boatswain.

"Oh! I forgot him,—he's the boatswain of the Talisman. Dick Price, this is my friend John Bumpus."

"Glad to know you, Dick Price."

"Same to you, and luck, John Bumpus."

The two sea-dogs joined their enormous palms, and shook hands cordially.

After these two had indulged in a little desultory conversation, Will Corrie, who, meanwhile, consulted with Alice in an undertone, brought them back to the point that was uppermost in his mind.

"Now," said he, "it comes to this,—we must not let Gascoyne be hanged."

"Why, Corrie!" cried Bumpus, in surprise, "that's the very thing I was a-thinkin' of w'en I comed up here and found Miss Alice under the tree."

"I'm glad to hear that, Jo; it's what has been on my own mind all the morning. But Dick Price, he is not convinced that he deserves to escape. Now you tell him all you know about Gascoyne, and I'll tell him all I know; and if he don't believe us, Alice and Poopy will tell him all they know; and if that won't do, you and I will take him up by the legs and pitch him into the sea!"

"That bein' how the case stands, fire away," said Dick Price, with a grin, sitting down on the grass and busily filling his pipe.

Dick was not so hard to be convinced as Corrie had feared. The glowing eulogiums of Bumpus, and the earnest pleadings of Alice, won him over very soon. He finally agreed to become one of the conspirators.

"But how is the thing to be done?" asked Corrie, in some perplexity.

"Ah! that's the p'int," observed Dick, looking profoundly wise.

"Nothing easier," said Bumpus, whose pipe was by this time keeping pace with that of his new friend. "The case is as clear as mud. Here's how it is. Gascoyne is in limbo; well, we are out of limbo. Good. Then, all we've got for to do is to break into limbo and shove Gascoyne out of limbo, and help him to escape. It's all square, you see, lads."

"Not so square as you seem to think," said Henry Stuart, who at that moment stepped from behind the stem of the tree, which had prevented the party from observing his approach.

"Why not?" said Bumpus, making room for the young man to sit beside Alice on the grass.

"Because," said Henry, "Gascoyne won't agree to escape."

"Not agree for to escape!"

"No. If the prison doors were opened at this moment, he would not walk out."

Bumpus became very grave, and shook his head. "Are ye sartin sure o' this?" said he.

"Quite sure," replied Henry, who now detailed part of his recent conversation with the pirate captain.

"Then it's all up with him!" said Bumpus; "and the pirate will meet his doom, as I once heard a feller say in a play—though I little thought to see it acted in reality."

"So he will," added Dick Price.

Corrie's countenance fell, and Alice grew pale, Even Poopy and Toozle looked a little depressed.

"No; it is not all up with him," cried Henry Stuart, energetically. "I have a plan in my head which I think will succeed, but I must have assistance. It won't do, however, to discuss this before our young friends. I must beg of Alice and Poopy to leave us. I do not mean to say I could not trust you, Alice, but the plan must be made known only to those who have to act in this matter. Rest assured, dear child, that I shall do my best to make it successful."

Alice sprang up at once. "My father told me to follow him some time ago," said she. "I have been too long of doing so already. I do hope you will succeed."

So saying, and with a cheerful "Good-by!" the little girl ran down the mountain-side, closely followed by Toozle and Poopy.

As soon as she was gone, Henry turned to his companions and unfolded to them his plan,—the details and carrying out of which, however, we must reserve for another chapter.

CHAPTER XXIX. BUMPUS IS PERPLEXED—MYSTERIOUS COMMUNINGS, AND A CURIOUS LEAVE-TAKING.

"It's a puzzler," said Jo Bumpus to himself,—for Jo was much in the habit of conversing with himself; and a very good habit it is, one that is often attended with much profit to the individual, when the conversation is held upon right topics and in a proper spirit,—"it's a puzzler, it is; that's a fact."

Having relieved his mind of this observation, the seaman proceeded to cut down some tobacco, and looked remarkably grave and solemn as if "it" were not only a puzzler, but an alarmingly serious puzzler.

"Yes, it's the biggest puzzler as ever I comed