“Eh? Humph! Well, I suppose it was. I laughed too. Well, better laugh than cry over spilt milk. It’s the excitement, I suppose, and what we have gone through. Now then, we had better go below and interview the doctor; but he will be busy over the lads for a long time before our turn comes.”
“I believe the skipper’s half-cracked,” said Roberts, as the two lads went below to their quarters.
“Then I’d keep my opinions to myself, old fellow,” grumbled Murray; and then as he seated himself upon a locker he uttered a low hissing sound suggestive of pain.
“Pooh! This is a free country – no, I don’t mean that,” cried Roberts, pulling himself up short. “I mean, every man has a right to his own opinions.”
“Yes, but not to give them aboard a man-o’-war.”
“Bah! We’re not slaves. Haven’t we come to suppress slavery?”
“I dare say we have,” said Murray, “but you’d better not let the skipper know that you said he was a bit of a lunatic.”
“Shall if I like. You won’t be a sneak and tell. Why, it was ghastly to see him turn as he did. One minute he was speaking feelingly and letting us all see that he meant to spare no efforts about pursuing and punishing that Yankee skipper, and the next he was laughing like a hysterical school-girl.”
“He couldn’t help it, poor old boy,” said Murray. “Old Anderson was just as bad, and we caught the infection and laughed too, and so did the men.”
“Well, I can’t see what there was to laugh at.”
“That’s the fun of it. But it is all through every one being so overstrung, I suppose. There, do leave off riddling about your cheeks.”
“Who’s fiddling, as you call it, about one’s cheeks?”
“You were, and it’s of no use; the miserable little bits of down are gone, and there’s nothing for it but to wait till the hairs begin to grow again.”
“Er-r-r!” growled Roberts angrily; and he raised his fingers to the singed spots involuntarily, and then snatched them down again, enraged by the smile which was beginning to pucker up his companion’s face. “There you go again. You’re worse than the skipper.”
“Then don’t make me laugh, for it hurts horribly.”
“I’ll make you laugh on the other side of your face directly.”
“No don’t – pray don’t,” sighed Murray; “for the skin there’s stiffer, and I’m sure it will crack.”
“You’re cracked already.”
“I think we must all have been, to get ourselves in such a mess, old fellow. But it was very brave, I suppose, and I don’t believe any one but English sailors would have done what we did.”
“Pooh! Any fools could have started those fires.”
“Perhaps so. But what’s the matter now?” For Roberts had raised his face from the water he was beginning to use, with an angry hiss.
“Try and bathe your face, and you’ll soon know.”
“Feel as if the skin was coming off? Well, we can’t help it. Must get rid of the black. The skin will grow again. But I’m thinking of one’s uniform. My jacket’s like so much tinder.”
A wash, a change, and a visit to the doctor ended with the sufferers being in comparative comfort, and the two lads stood and looked at each other.
“Hasn’t improved our appearance, Dick,” said Murray.
“No; but you must get the barber to touch you up. One side of your curly wig is singed right off, and the other’s fairly long.”
“I don’t care,” cried Murray carelessly. “I’m not going to bother about anything. Let’s go on deck and see what they’re about.”
Roberts was quite willing, and the first man they encountered was the able-seaman Titely.
“Why, hallo!” cried Murray. “I expected you’d be in hospital.”
“Me, sir! What for?”
“Your wound.”
“That warn’t a wound, sir; only a snick. The doctor put a couple o’ stitches in it, and then he made a sorter star with strips o’ stick-jack plaister. My belt got the worst of it, and jest look at my hair, sir. Sam Mason scissored off one side; the fire did the other. Looks nice and cool, don’t it?”
The man took off his new straw hat and held his head first on one side and then the other for inspection.
“Why, you look like a Turk, Titely,” said Murray.
“Yes, I do, sir, don’t I? Old Sam Mason’s clipping away still. The other chaps liked mine so that they wanted theirs done the same. It’s prime, sir, for this here climate.”
“But your wound?” said Roberts.
“Don’t talk about it, sir, or I shall be put upon the sick list, and it’s quite hot enough without a fellow being shut up below. Noo canvas trousis, sir. Look prime, don’t they?”
“But, Titely,” cried Murray, “surely you ought to be on the sick list?”
“I say, please don’t say such a word,” whispered the man, looking sharply round. “You’ll be having the skipper and Mr Anderson hearing on you. I ain’t no wuss than my messmates.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Roberts, “but – why, they seem to be all on deck.”
“Course they are, sir,” said the man, grinning. “There’s nowt the matter with them but noo shirts and trousis, and they allers do chafe a bit.”
Murray laughed.
“But you ought to be on the sick list.”
“Oh, I say, sir, please don’t! How would you young gentlemen like to be laid aside?”
“But what does the doctor say? Didn’t he tell you that you ought to go into the sick bay?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, grinning; “but I gammoned him a bit.”
“You cheated the doctor, sir!” said Roberts sternly.
“Well, sir, I didn’t mean no harm,” said the man, puckering up his face a little and wincing – “I only put it to him like this: said I should only fret if I went on the sick list, and lie there chewing more than was good for me.”
“Well, and what did he say?”
“Told me I was a himpident scoundrel, sir, and that I was to go and see him every morning, and keep my left arm easy and not try to haul.”
In fact, singeing, some ugly blisters, a certain number of hands that were bound up by the doctor, and a few orders as to their use – orders which proved to be forgotten at once – and a certain awkwardness of gait set down to the stiffness of the newly issued garments – those were all that were noticeable at the first glance round by the midshipmen, and apparently the whole crew were ready and fit to help in the efforts being made to get the sloop out of her unpleasant position in the mud of the giant river.
As for the men themselves, they were in the highest of spirits, and worked away hauling at cables and hoisting sail to such an extent that when the night wind came sweeping along the lower reaches of the river, the sloop careened over till it seemed as if she would dip her canvas in the swiftly flowing tide, but recovered almost to float upon an even keel. Twice more she lay over again, and then a hearty cheer rang out, for she rose after the last careen and then began to glide slowly out into deeper water, just as the captain gave orders for one of the bow guns to be fired.
“Why was that?” said Murray, who had been busy at his duties right aft. “Didn’t you see?”
“No.