The Greatest Sea Adventure Novels: 30+ Maritime Novels, Pirate Tales & Seafaring Stories. R. M. Ballantyne
up one of Bumpus's huge hands, the boy ordered Alice to grasp the other. Poopy, without waiting for orders, seized hold of the hair of his head, and all three began to haul with might and main. But they might as well have tried to pull a line-of-battle ship up on the shore. The man's bulky form was immovable. Seeing this, they changed their plan, and, all three grasping his legs, slewed him partially round, and thus drew his feet out of the water.
"Now we must warm him," said Corrie, eagerly; for, the first shock of the discovery of the supposed dead body of his friend being over, the sanguine boy began to entertain hopes of resuscitating him. "I've heard that the best thing for drowned people is to warm them: so, Alice, do you take one hand and arm, Poopy will take the other, and I will take his feet, and we'll all rub away till we bring him to; for we must, we shall bring him round."
Corrie said this with a fierce look and a hysterical sob. Without more words he drew out his clasp-knife, and, ripping up the cuffs of the man's coat, laid bare his muscular arm. Meanwhile Alice untied his neckcloth, and Poopy tore open his Guernsey frock and exposed his broad, brown chest.
"We must warm that at once," said Corrie, beginning to take off his jacket, which he meant to spread over the seaman's breast.
"Stay! my petticoat is warmer," cried Alice, hastily divesting herself of a flannel garment of bright scarlet, the brilliant beauty of which had long been the admiration of the entire population of Sandy Cove. The child spread it over the seaman's chest, and tucked it carefully down at his sides, between his body and the wet garments. Then the three sat down beside him, and, each seizing a limb, began to rub and chafe with a degree of energy that nothing could resist. At any rate it put life into John Bumpus; for that hardy mariner gradually began to exhibit signs of returning vitality.
"There he comes!" cried Come, eagerly.
"Eh!" exclaimed Poopy, in alarm.
"Who? where?" inquired Alice, who thought that the boy referred to some one who had unexpectedly appeared on the scene.
"I saw him wink with his left eye,—look!"
All three suspended their labor of love, and, stretching forward their heads, gazed, with breathless anxiety, at the clay-colored face of Jo.
"I must have been mistaken," said Corrie, shaking his head.
"Go at him agin," cried Poopy, recommencing her work on the right arm with so much energy that it seemed marvelous how she escaped skinning that limb from fingers to shoulder.
Poor Alice did her best, but her soft little hands had not much effect on the huge mass of brown flesh they manipulated.
"There he comes again!" shouted Corrie.
Once more there was an abrupt pause in the process, and the three heads were bent eagerly forward watching for symptoms of returning life. Corrie was right. The seaman's left eye quivered for a moment, causing the hearts of the three children to beat high with hope. Presently the other eye also quivered; then the broad chest rose almost imperceptibly, and a faint sigh came feebly and broken from the cold blue lips.
To say that the three children were delighted at this would be to give but a feeble idea of the state of their feelings. Corrie had, even in the short time yet afforded him of knowing Bumpus, entertained for him feelings of the deepest admiration and love. Alice and Poopy, out of sheer sympathy, had fallen in love with him too, at first sight; so that his horrible death (as they had supposed), coupled with his unexpected restoration and revival through their united exertions, drew them still closer to him, and created within them a sort of feeling that he must, in common reason and justice, regard himself as their special property in all future time. When, therefore, they saw him wink, and heard him sigh, the gush of emotion that filled their respective bosoms was quite overpowering. Corrie gasped in his effort not to break down; Alice wept with silent joy as she continued to chafe the man's limbs; and Poopy went off into a violent fit of hysterical laughter, in which her "hee, hees" resounded with terrible shrillness among the surrounding cliffs.
"Now, then, let's to work again with a will," said Corrie. "What d'ye say to try punching him?"
This question he put gravely, and with the uncertain air of a man who feels that he is treading on new and possibly dangerous ground.
"What is punching?" inquired Alice.
"Why, that," replied the boy, giving a practical and by no means gentle illustration on his own fat thigh.
"Wouldn't it hurt him?" said Alice, dubiously.
"Hurt him! hurt the Grampus!" cried Corrie, with a look of surprise; "you might as well talk of hurting a hippopotamus. Come, I'll try."
Accordingly, Corrie tried. He began to bake the seaman, as it were, with his fists. As the process went on he warmed to the work, and did it so energetically, in his mingled anxiety and hope, that it assumed the character of hitting rather than punching—to the dismay of Alice, who thought it impossible that any human being could stand such dreadful treatment.
Whether it was owing to this process, or to the action of nature, or to the combined efforts of nature and his friends, that Bumpus owed his recovery, we cannot pretend to say; but certain it is, that, on Corrie's making a severer dab than usual into the pit of the seaman's stomach, he gave a gasp and a sneeze, the latter of which almost overturned Poopy, who chanced to be gazing wildly into his countenance at the moment. At the same time he involuntarily threw up his right arm, and fetched Corrie such a tremendous backhander on the chest that our young hero was laid flat on his back, half stunned by the violence of the fall, yet shouting with delight that his rugged friend still lived to strike another blow.
Having achieved this easy though unintentional victory, Bumpus sighed again, shook his legs in the air, and sat up, gazing before him with a bewildered air, and gasping from time to time in a quiet way.
"Wot's to do?" were the first words with which the restored seaman greeted his friends.
"Hurrah!" screamed Corrie, his visage blazing with delight, as he danced in front of him.
"Werry good," said Bumpus, whose intellect was not yet thoroughly restored; "try it again."
"Oh, how cold your cheeks are!" said Alice, placing her hands on them, and chafing them gently; then, perceiving that she did not communicate much warmth in that way, she placed her own fair, soft cheek against that of the sailor. Suddenly throwing both arms round his neck, she hugged him, and burst into tears.
Bumpus was somewhat taken aback by this unexpected explosion; but, being an affectionate man as well as a rugged one, he had no objection whatever to the peculiar treatment. He allowed the child to sob on his neck as long as she chose, while Corrie stood by, with his hands in his pockets, sailor-fashion, and looked on admiringly. As for Poopy, she sat down on a rock a short way off, and began to smile and talk to herself in a manner so utterly idiotical that an ignorant observer would certainly have judged her to be insane.
They were thus agreeably employed, when an event occurred which changed the current of their thoughts, and led to consequences of a somewhat serious nature. The event, however, was in itself insignificant. It was nothing more than the sudden appearance of a wild pig among the bushes close at hand.
CHAPTER XVI.
A Wild Chase—Hope, Disappointment, and Despair—The Sandal-Wood Trader Outwits the Man-Of-War
When the wild pig, referred to in the last chapter, was first observed, it was standing on the margin of a thicket, from which it had just issued, gazing, with the profoundly philosophical aspect peculiar to that animal, at our four friends, and seeming to entertain doubts as to the propriety of beating an immediate retreat.
Before it had made up its mind on this point, Corrie's eye alighted on it.
"Hist!" exclaimed he with a gesture of caution to his companions. "Look there! We've had nothing to eat