The boy’s reply to this was a torrent of shrill abuse, principally directed to Jem’s facial short-comings.
“Now don’t get rude,” said the seaman, grinning.
“Squint eyes,” cried Ralph fiercely.
“When you’ve done with that ‘ere young gentleman, Dobbs,” said Jem, with exquisite politeness. “I should like to ‘ave ‘im for a little bit to teach ‘im manners.”
“‘E don’t want to go,” said Dobbs, grinning as Ralph clung to him. “He knows who’s kind to him.”
“Wait till I get a chance at you,” sobbed Ralph, as Jem took him away from Dobbs.
“Lord lumme,” said Jem, regarding him in astonishment. “Why, he’s actooaly cryin’. I’ve seen a good many pirates in my time, Bill, but this is a new sort.”
“Leave the boy alone,” said the cook, a fat, good-natured man. “Here, come ‘ere, old man. They don’t mean no ‘arm.”
Glad to escape, Ralph made his way over to the cook, grinding his teeth with shame as that worthy took him between his knees and mopped his eyes with something which he called a handkerchief.
“You’ll be all right,” he said kindly. “You’ll be as good a pirate as any of us before you’ve finished.”
“Wait till the first engagement, that’s all,” sobbed the boy. “If somebody don’t get shot in the back it won’t be my fault.”
The two seamen looked at each other. “That’s wot hurt my ‘and then,” said Dobbs slowly. “I thought it was a jack-knife.”
He reached over, and unceremoniously grabbing the boy by the collar, pulled him towards him, and drew a small, cheap revolver from his pocket. “Look at that, Jem.”
“Take your fingers orf the blessed trigger and then I will,” said the other, somewhat sourly.
“I’ll pitch it overboard,” said Dobbs.
“Don’t be a fool, Bill,” said Smithers, pocketing it, “that’s worth a few pints o’ anybody’s money. Stand out o’ the way, Bill, the Pirit King wants to go on deck.”
Bill moved aside as the boy went to the ladder, and, allowing him to get up four or five steps, did the rest for him with his shoulder. The boy reached the deck on all fours, and, regaining a more dignified position as soon as possible, went and leaned over the side, regarding with lofty contempt the busy drudges on wharf and river.
They sailed at midnight and brought up in the early dawn in Longreach, where a lighter loaded with barrels came alongside, and the boy smelt romance and mystery when he learnt that they contained powder. They took in ten tons, the lighter drifted away, the hatches were put on, and they started once more.
It was his first voyage, and he regarded with eager interest the craft passing up and down. He had made his peace with the seamen, and they regaled him with blood-curdling stories of their adventures in the vain hope of horrifying him.
“‘E’s a beastly little rascal, that’s wot ‘e is,” said the indignant Bill, who had surprised himself by his powers of narration; “fancy larfin’ when I told ‘im of pitchin’ the baby to the sharks.”
‘“E’s all right, Bill,” said the cook softly. “Wait till you’ve got seven of ‘em.”
“What are you doing here, boy?” demanded the skipper, as Ralph, finding the seamen’s yarns somewhat lacking in interest, strolled aft with his hands in his pockets.
“Nothing,” said the boy, staring.
“Keep the other end o’ the ship,” said the skipper sharply, “an’ go an’ ‘elp the cook with the taters.”
Ralph hesitated, but a grin on the mate’s face decided him.
“I didn’t come here to peel potatoes,” he said, loftily.
“Oh, indeed,” said the skipper politely; “an’ wot might you ‘ave come for, if it ain’t being too inquisitive?”
“To fight the enemy,” said Ralph shortly.
“Come ‘ere,” said the skipper.
The boy came slowly towards him.
“Now look ‘ere,” said the skipper, “I’m going to try and knock a little sense into that stupid ‘ed o’ yours. I’ve ‘eard all about your silly little games ashore. Your father said he couldn’t manage you, so I’m goin’ to have a try, and you’ll find I’m a very different sort o’ man to deal with to wot ‘e is. The idea o’ thinking this ship was a pirate. Why, a boy your age ought to know there ain’t such things nowadays.”
“You told me you was,” said the boy hotly, “else I wouldn’t have come.”
“That’s just why I told you,” said the skipper.
“But I didn’t think you’d be such a fool as to believe it. Pirates, indeed! Do we look like pirates?”
“You don’t,” said the boy with a sneer; “you look more like–”
“Like wot?” asked the skipper, edging closer to him. “Eh, like wot?”
“I forget the word,” said Ralph, with strong good sense.
“Don’t tell any lies now,” said the skipper, flushing, as he heard a chuckle from the mate. “Go on, out with it. Ill give you just two minutes.”
“I forget it,” persisted Ralph.
“Dustman?” suggested the mate, coming to his assistance. “Coster, chimbley-sweep, mudlark, pickpocket, convict washer-wom–”
“If you’ll look after your dooty, George, instead o’ interferin’ in matters that don’t concern you,” said the skipper in a choking voice, “I shall be obliged. Now, then, you boy, what were you going to say I was like?”
“Like the mate,” said Ralph slowly.
“Don’t tell lies,” said the skipper furiously; “you couldn’t ‘ave forgot that word.”
“I didn’t forget it,” said Ralph, “but I didn’t know how you’d like it.”
The skipper looked at him dubiously, and pushing his cap from his brow scratched his head.
“And I didn’t know how the mate ‘ud like it, either,” continued the boy.
He relieved the skipper from an awkward dilemma by walking off to the galley and starting on a bowl of potatoes. The master of the Susan Jane watched him blankly for some time and then looked round at the mate.
“You won’t get much change out of ‘im,” said the latter, with a nod; “insultin’ little devil.”
The other made no reply, but as soon as the potatoes were finished set his young friend to clean brass work, and after that to tidy the cabin up and help the cook clean his pots and pans. Meantime the mate went below and overhauled his chest.
“This is where he gets all them ideas from,” he said, coming aft with a big bundle of penny papers. “Look at the titles of ‘em—‘The Lion of the Pacific,’ ‘The One-armed Buccaneer,’ ‘Captain Kidd’s Last Voyage.’”
He sat down on the cabin skylight and began turning them over, and, picking out certain gems of phraseology, read them aloud to the skipper. The latter listened at first with scorn and then with impatience.
“I can’t make head or tail out of what you’re reading, George,” he said snappishly. “Who was Rudolph? Read straight ahead.”
Thus urged, the mate, leaning forward so that his listener might hear better, read steadily through a serial in the first three numbers. The third instalment left Rudolph swimming in a race with three sharks