King o' the Beach: A Tropic Tale. George Manville Fenn
and then he laughed.
“Well, it’s all so new and fresh,” he said. “I should like to see a storm, though. One of those what do you call ’ems—tycoons—no, typhoons.”
“You’re getting deeper into the mire,” said the doctor, smiling. “Carey—why, we ought to nickname you Don’t-Care-y, to have such a wish as that.”
“Why? It would be a change.”
“A storm! Here, in this rock and shoal-dotted sea, with its dangerous currents and terrible reefs, where captains need all their skill to pilot their vessels safe to port!”
“Never thought of that,” said the lad. “Let’s see, what does the chart say? New Guinea to the north, and home to the south.”
“Home if you like to call it so,” said the doctor; “but you’ve a long, long journey before you yet.”
“Yes, I know, through Torres Straits and Coral Sea and by the Great Barrier Reef. I say, doctor, wouldn’t it be jolly to be landed somewhere to the south here and then walk across the country to Brisbane?”
“Very,” said the doctor, drily. “Suppose you’d take a few sandwiches to eat on the way?”
“There, you’re joking me again,” said the boy. “I suppose it would be many days’ march.”
“Say months, then think a little and make it years.”
“Oh! nonsense, doctor!”
“Or more likely you’d never reach it. It would be next to impossible.”
“Why?” said Carey.
“Want of supplies. The traveller would break down for want of food and water.”
“Oh! very well,” cried the boy, merrily; “then we’ll go by sea.”
It was the day following this conversation that Carey Cranford’s energy found vent, despite the heat, in a fresh way.
The Chusan was tearing along through the dazzlingly bright sea, churning up the water into foam with her propeller and leaving a cloud of smoke behind. The heat was tremendous, for there was a perfect calm, and the air raised by the passage of the steamer was as hot as if it had come from the mouth of a furnace. The passengers looked languid and sleepy as they lolled about finder the great awning, and the sailors congratulated themselves that they were not Lascars stoking in the engine-room, Robert Bostock, generally known on board as Old Bob, having given it as his opinion that it was “a stinger.” Then he chuckled, and said to the man nearest:
“Look at that there boy! He’s a rum un, and no mistake. That’s being British, that is. You’d never see a Frenchy or a Jarman or a ’Talian up to games like that in the sun.”
“That there boy” was Carey Cranford, and he had taken the attention of the captain as well, who was standing under the awning in company with the doctor, and the two chuckled.
“There, doctor,” he said; “did you ever see so much of the monkey in a boy before? Wouldn’t you think a chap might be content in the shade on a day like this? What’s he doing—training for a sweep?”
A modern steamer does not offer the facilities for going aloft furnished by a sailing ship, and her masts and yards are pretty well coated with soot; but Carey Cranford, in his investigating spirit, had not paused to consider that, for he had caught sight of what looked like a blue cloud low down on the southern horizon.
“One of the islands,” he said to himself. “Wonder what’s its name.”
He did not stop to enquire, but went below, threw the strap of his large binocular glass over his head, ascended to the deck again, and then, selecting the highest mast, well forward of the funnel, he made his way as far aloft as he could, and stood in a very precarious position scanning the distant cloud-like spot.
The place he had selected to take his observation was on one of the yards, just where it crossed the mast, and if he had contented himself with a sitting position the accident would not have happened; but he had mentally argued that the higher a person was the wider his optical range, so he must needs add the two feet or so extra gained by standing instead of sitting. His left arm was round the mast, and both hands were steadying the glass as, intent upon the island, he carefully turned the focussing screw, when the steamer, rising to the long smooth swell, careened over slightly, and one of the boy’s feet, consequent upon the smoothness of his deck shoes, glided from beneath him, bringing forth the captain’s warning cry and following words.
For the next moment, in spite of a frantic clutch at the mast, the boy was falling headlong down, as if racing his glass, but vainly, for this reached the deck first, the unfortunate lad’s progress being checked twice by his coming in contact with wire stays, before head and shoulder struck the deck with a sickening thud.
Chapter Two.
The doctor was first by the injured lad’s side, quickly followed by the captain and a score of passengers who had been roused to action by the accident.
“Keep everyone back,” cried the doctor, “and let’s have air.”
The doctor was for the moment in command of the vessel, and the captain obeyed without a word, forming all who came up into a wide circle, and then impatiently returning to the injured lad’s side.
“Well?” he panted, as he took off his gold-banded cap to wipe his streaming forehead. “Tell me what to do.”
“Nothing yet,” replied the doctor, who was breathing hard, but striving to keep himself professionally cool.
“Not dangerously hurt?” whispered the captain; but in the terrible silence which had fallen his words were distinctly heard above the throbbing of the vibrating engines, which seemed to make the great vessel shudder at what had occurred.
“I am not sure yet,” said the doctor gravely.
“But the blood—the blood!” cried one of the lady passengers.
“As far as I can make out at present the leather case of his glass has saved his skull from fracture. He fell right upon it, but I fear that the collar-bone is broken, and I cannot say yet whether there is anything wrong with the spine.
“No!” he said the next minute, for the sufferer stretched out his hands as if to clutch and save himself, and he moved his legs.
There were plenty of willing hands ready to help, and a canvas stretcher was drawn beneath the sufferer so that he could be carried carefully down to one of the state cabins, which was immediately vacated for his use; and there for hours Doctor Kingsmead was calling into his service everything that a long training could suggest; but apparently in vain, for his patient lay quite insensible in the sultry cabin, apparently sinking slowly into the great ocean of eternity.
And all the time the huge steamer tore on over the oily sea through a great heat which rivalled that of the engine-room, and the captain and first and second mates held consultations twice over in connection with barometer and chart, by the light of the swinging lamp below.
The passengers supposed that those meetings concerned the injured boy, but the sailors, who had had experience, knew that there was something more behind, and that evening after the sun had gone downs looking coppery and orange where a peculiar haze dimmed the west, one of the sailors who had gathered round where old Bostock was seated hazarded a few words to his senior.
“Looks a strange deal like a storm,” he said.
“Ay, it does,” said the old sailor; “and as I was saying,” he continued, passing his hand across his eyes, “it do seem strange how these things come about. Here’s me more’n fifty, and about half wore out, and