Tom Wallis: A Tale of the South Seas. Louis Becke
Land and West Australia, and then along the Great Bight back to Kooringa. It would make me famous, father. Mother said it would be more than ten thousand miles.'
Mr. Wallis laughed. 'More than that, Jack. But who knows what may happen? Perhaps I may buy some cattle country in Queensland some day; then you shall have a chance of doing some exploring. But not for some years yet, my boy,' he added, placing his hand on his son's shoulder; 'I do not want to go away from Kooringa yet; and I want to come back here, so that when my time comes I may be laid beside her.'
'Yes, dad,' said the lad simply; 'I too want to be buried near poor mother when I die. Isn't it awful to think of dying at some place a long way from Kooringa, away from her? That's what I told Tom the other day. I said that if he goes to sea he might be drowned, or bitten in halves by a shark, like the two convicts who tried to cross the bar on a log when they ran away. Father, don't let Tom be a sailor. We might never see him again. Wouldn't it be awful if he never came back to us? And mother loved him so, didn't she? Don't you remember when she was dying how she made Tom lie down beside her on her bed, and cried, "Oh, my Benjamin, my Benjamin, my beloved"?'
'Yes, my lad,' answered the father, turning his face towards the sea, which shone and sparkled in the bright morning sunlight. Then the two rode on in silence, the man thinking of his dead wife, and the boy dreaming of that long, long ride of ten thousand miles, and of the strange sights he might yet see.
From the broad front verandah of the quiet house, young Tom had watched his father and brother ride off towards the town, on their way to the river crossing which was some miles distant from the bar. Once over the river, they would have to return seaward along its northern bank, till they emerged upon the ocean beach. They would not return till nightfall, or perhaps till the following day, as Mr. Wallis wished to look for some missing cattle in the scrubs around the base of rugged Cape Kooringa, and 'Wellington,' one of the aboriginal stockmen, had already preceded them with a pack-horse carrying their blankets and provisions, leaving Tom practically in charge, although old Foster, a somewhat rough and crusty ex-man-of-war's man, who had been Mrs. Wallis's attendant since her childhood, was nominally so. He with two or three women servants and the gardener were all that were employed in, and lived in the house itself, the rest of the hands having their quarters at the stockyards, which were nearly half a mile away.
Tom watched his brother and father till they disappeared in the misty haze which at that early hour still hung about the beach and the low foreshore, although the sun had now, as Foster said, a good hoist, and the calm sea lay clear and blue beneath. Then something like a sigh escaped him, as his unwilling eye lighted upon his lesson-books, which were lying upon the table of a little enclosure at one end of the verandah, which did duty as a schoolroom for his brother and himself.
'Well, it can't be helped,' he muttered; 'I promised dad to try and pull up a bit-and there's the tide going out fast. How can a fellow dig into school books when he knows it's going to be a dead low tide, and the crayfish will be sticking their feelers up everywhere out of the kelp? Dad said three hours this morning. Now, what does it matter whether it is this morning, or this afternoon, or this evening? And of course he didn't think it would be such a lovely morning-and he likes crayfish. I wonder if he will be angry when I tell him?' Then, stepping inside, he called out-
'Foster, where are you?' There was a rattle of knives in the pantry, and then the old man shuffled along the passage, and came into the dining-room.
'What now, Master Tom?' he grumbled; 'not at your lessons yet? 'Tis nine o'clock-'
'Yes, I know, Foster. But, Foster, just look at the tip of Flat Rock showing up already. It's going to be a dead low tide, and-'
'Don't you dare now! Ah, I know what you're going to say. No, I won't have it. Leastways I won't argy over it. And don't you disobey orders-not if all the crayfish in Australy was a runnin' up out o' the water, and climbin' trees.' Then, screwing his features up into an affectation of great wrath, he shuffled away again.
Tom's face fell, and again a heavy sigh escaped him, as he looked at the shimmering sea, and saw that beyond the bar it was as smooth as a mountain lake. Then he quietly opened the Venetian shutters of the dining-room, and let the bright sunlight stream in.
'It's no use,' he said to himself, 'I can't work this morning. I'll try and think a bit whether I shall go or not.'
Over the mantel in the dining-room was a marine picture. It was but rudely painted in water-colours-perhaps by some seaman's rough hand, – and the lapse of five and twenty years had dimmed it sadly; but to Tom's mind it was the finest painting in the world, and redolent of wild adventure and romance. It showed as a background the shore of a tropical island, the hills clothed with jungle, and the yellow beach lined with palm trees, while in the foreground the blue rollers of the ocean churned into froth against a long curve of coral reef, on which lay a man-of-war, with the surf leaping high over her decks, and with main and mizzen-masts gone. On the left of the picture was a beautiful white-painted brig, with old-fashioned rolling topsails and with her mainyard aback; and between her and the wreck were a number of boats crowded with men in uniform, escaping from the ship.
Often when the house was silent had Tom, even when a boy of ten, stolen into the room, and, sitting cross-legged on the rug, gazed longingly at the painting which, to his boyish imagination, seemed to live, ay, and speak to him in a wild symphony of crashing surf and swaying palm trees, mingling with the cries of the sailors and the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistles. Then, too, his eyes would linger over the inscription that, in two lines, ran along the whole length of the foot of the picture, and he would read it over and over again to himself gloatingly, and let his mind revel in visions of what he would yet see when he grew old enough to sail on foreign seas, as his father and his uncle Fred Hemsley had done. This is what the inscription said: -
'The Wreck of the Dutch warship Samarang on the coast of Timor Laut; and the Rescue of her Crew by the English brig Huntress, of Sydney, commanded by Mr. William Ford, and owned by Frederick Hemsley, Esquire, of Amboyna; on the morning of May 4, 1836.'
Half an hour later old Foster clattered suddenly along the verandah, peered into the schoolroom, and then into the dining-room, where Tom sat in a chair-still gazing at the picture.
'Rouse ye, rouse ye, Master Tom. Your eyes are better than mine. Here, look'-and he placed Mr. Wallis's telescope in the boy's hand-'look over there beyond Kooringa Rock. 'Tis a drifting boat, I believe. Kate tells me that it was in sight an hour ago, before your father and Master Jack went away, and yet the foolish creature never told me.'
Tom took the glass-an old-fashioned telescope, half a fathom long, and steadied it against a verandah post.
'Have you got her?' asked old Foster.
'Yes, yes,' answered the boy, quickly, his hand shaking with excitement; 'I can see her, Foster. There are people in her … yes, yes, and they are pulling. I can see the oars dipping quite plainly. What boat can it be?'
'Shipwrecked people, o' course. What would any other boat be doin' out there, a comin' in from the eastward? Can you see which way she is heading?'
'Straight in for the bar, Foster.'
'And nothing but a steamer could stem the current now, with the tide runnin' out at six knots; an' more than that, they'll capsize as soon as they get abreast o' Flat Rock, and be aten up by the sharks. Master Tom, we must man our boat somehow, and go out to them. Then we can pilot them in to the bit o' beach under Pilot's Hill, if the current is too strong for us to get back here. But how we're going to launch the boat, let alone man her, is the trouble; there's not a man about the place but myself, and it will take the best part of an hour to send Kate or any other o' the women to the town and back.'
'Never mind that, Foster,' cried the boy; 'look down there on the rocks-there are Combo, and Fly, and some other black fellows spearing fish! They will help us to launch the boat, and come with us too.'
'Then run, lad; run as hard as ye can, and bring them up to the boatshed, an' I'll follow as soon as I get what I want.'
Seizing his cap, Tom darted away down the hill, across the beach, and then splashed through the shallow pools of water on the reef towards the party of aboriginals; whilst old Foster, calling out to Kate and the other