Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best ereader manga txt) 📕

could find. Here, after a short time, they discovered the object of their solicitude lying, apparently dead, on his back among the rocks.

When Bumpus struck the water, after being tossed over the cliff, his head was fortunately downward, and his skull, being the thickest and hardest bone in his body, had withstood the terrible shock to which it had been subjected without damage, though the brain within was, for a time, incapacitated from doing duty. When John rose again to the surface, after a descent into unfathomable water, he floated there in a state of insensibility. Fortunately the wind and tide combined to wash him to the shore, where a higher swell than usual launched him among the coral rocks, and left him there, with only his feet in the water.

"Oh! here he is, hurrah!" shouted Corrie, on catching sight of the prostrate form of the seaman. But the boy's manner changed the instant he observed the colour of the man's face, from which all the blood had been driven, leaving it like a piece of brown leather.

"He's dead," said Alice, wringing her hands in despair.

"P'rhaps not," suggested Poopy, with a look of deep wisdom, as she gazed on the upturned face.

"Anyhow, we must haul him out of the water," said Corrie, whose chest heaved with the effort he made to repress his tears.

Catching 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 too--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 Corrie, 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 labour of love, and, stretching forward their heads, gazed with breathless anxiety at the clay-coloured 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 marvellous 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 unaided 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 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 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 his 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 intellects were 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. This 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 SIXTEEN.


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 for an awful time; nothing since breakfast on Sunday morning. I feel as if my interior had been amputated. Oh! what a jolly roast that fellow would make if we could only kill him."

"Wot's in the pistol?" inquired Bumpus, pointing to the weapon which Corrie had stuck ostentatiously into his belt.

"Nothin'," answered the boy. "I fired the last charge I had into the face of a savage."

"Fling it at him," suggested Bumpus, getting cautiously up. "Here, hand it to me. I've seed a heavy horse-pistol like that do great execution when well aimed by a stout arm."

The pig seemed to have an intuitive perception that danger was approaching, for it turned abruptly round just as the missile left the seaman's hand, and received the butt with full force close to the root of its tail.

A pig's tendency to shriek on the receipt of the slightest injury is well known. It is therefore not to be wondered at, that this pig went off into the bushes under cover of a series of yells so terrific that they might have been heard for miles round.

"I'll after him," cried Bumpus, catching up a large stone, and leaping forward a few paces almost as actively as if nothing had happened to him.

"Hurrah!" shouted Corrie, "I'll go too."

"Hold on," cried Bumpus, stopping suddenly.

"Why?" inquired the boy.

"'Cause you must stop an' take care of the gals. It won't do to leave 'em alone again, you know, Corrie."

This remark was accompanied with an exceedingly huge wink full of deep meaning, which Corrie found it convenient not to notice, as