The Red Eric by R. M. Ballantyne (web ebook reader txt) 📕

her small hands and did her utmost to help him. It wasn’t much, poor thing; but to hear the way in which Glynn encouraged her and spoke of her efforts, one would have supposed she had been as useful as a full-grown man! After a couple of hours’ hard work, they emerged upon the lake, and here Glynn felt that he was pretty safe, because, in the still water, no man could swim nearly as fast as he could paddle. Besides, it was now getting dark, so he pushed out towards a rocky islet on which there were only a few small bushes, resolved to take a short rest there, and then continue his flight under cover of the darkness.

While Glynn carried ashore some biscuit, which was the only thing in the boat they could eat without cooking, Ailie broke off some branches from the low bushes that covered the little rocky islet, and spread them out on a flat rock for a couch; this done, she stood on the top of a large stone and gazed round upon the calm surface of the beautiful lake, in the dark depths of which the stars twinkled as if there were another sky down there.

“Now, Ailie,” said Glynn, “come along and have supper. It’s not a very tempting one, but we must content ourselves with hard fare and a hard bed to-night, as I dare not light a fire lest the negroes should observe it and catch us.”

“I’m sorry for that,” replied the child; “for a fire is so nice and cheery; and it helps to keep off the wild beasts, too, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it does; but there are no wild beasts on such a small rock as this, and the sides are luckily too steep for crocodiles to crawl up.”

“Shall we sleep here till morning?” asked Ailie, munching her hard biscuit and drinking her tin pannikinful of cold water with great relish, for she was very hungry.

“Oh, no!” replied Glynn. “We must be up and away in an hour at farthest. So, as I see you’re about done with your luxurious supper, I propose that you lie down to rest.”

Ailie was only too glad to accede to this proposal. She lay down on the branches, and after Glynn had covered her with a blanket, he stretched himself on a leopard-skin beside her, and both of them fell asleep in five minutes. The mosquitoes were very savage that night, but the sleepers were too much fatigued to mind their vicious attacks.

Glynn slept two hours, and then he wakened with a start, as most persons do when they have arranged, before going to sleep, to rise at a certain hour. He rose softly, carried the provisions back to the canoe, and in his sleepy condition almost stepped upon the head of a huge crocodile, which, ignorant of their presence, had landed its head on the islet in order to have a snooze. Then he roused Ailie, and led her, more than half asleep, down to the beach, and lifted her into the canoe, after which he pushed off, and paddled briskly over the still waters of the star-lit lake. Ailie merely yawned during all these proceedings; said, “Dear me! is it time to—yeaow! oh, I’m so sleepy;” mumbled something about papa wondering what had become of Jim Scroggles, and about her being convinced that—“yeaow!—the ship must have lost itself among the whales and monkeys;” and then, dropping her head on the leopard-skins with a deep sigh of comfort, she returned to the land of Nod.

Glynn Proctor worked so well that it was still early in the morning and quite dark when he arrived at the encampment where they had been made prisoners. His heart beat audibly as he approached the dark landing-place, and observed no sign of his comrades. The moment the bow of the canoe touched the shore, he sprang over the side, and, without disturbing the little sleeper, drew it gently up the bank, and fastened the bow-rope to a tree; then he hurried to the spot where they had slept and found all the fires out except one, of which a few dull embers still remained; but no comrade was visible.

It is a felicitous arrangement of our organs of sense, that where one organ fails to convey to our inward man information regarding the outward world, another often steps in to supply its place, and perform the needful duty. We have said that Glynn Proctor saw nothing of his comrades,—although he gazed earnestly all round the camp—for the very good reason that it was almost pitch-dark; but although his eyes were useless, his ears were uncommonly acute, and through their instrumentality he became cognisant of a sound. It might have been distant thunder, but was too continuous and regular for that. It might have been the distant rumbling of heavy wagons or artillery over a paved road; but there were neither wagons nor roads in those African wilds. It might have been the prolonged choking of an alligator—it might, in fact, have been anything in a region like that, where everything, almost, was curious, and new, and strange, and wild, and unaccountable; and the listener was beginning to entertain the most uncomfortable ideas of what it probably was, when a gasp and a peculiar snort apprised him that it was a human snore!—at least, if not a human snore, it was that of some living creature which indulged to a very extravagant degree in that curious and altogether objectionable practice.

Stepping cautiously forward on tip-toe, Glynn searched among the leaves all round the fire, following the direction of the sounds, but nothing was to be found; and he experienced a slight feeling of supernatural dread creeping over him, when a peculiarly loud metallic snore sounded clear above his head. Looking up, he beheld by the dull red light of the almost extinct fire, the form of Phil Briant, half-seated, half-reclining, on the branch of a tree not ten feet from the ground, and clasping another branch tightly with both arms.

At that moment, Ailie, who had awakened, ran up, and caught Glynn by the hand.

“Hallo! Briant!” exclaimed Glynn.

A very loud snore was the reply.

“Briant! Phil Briant, I say; hallo! Phil!” shouted Glynn.

“Arrah! howld yer noise will ye,” muttered the still sleeping man—“sno—o—o—o—re!”

“A fall! a fall!—all hands ahoy! tumble up there, tumble up!” shouted Glynn, in the nautical tones which he well knew would have their effect upon his comrade.

He was right. They had more than their usual effect on him. The instant he heard them, Phil Briant shouted— “Ay, ay, sir!” and, throwing his legs over the side of what he supposed to be his hammock, he came down bodily on what he supposed to be the deck with a whack that caused him to utter an involuntary but tremendous howl.

“Oh! och! oh! murther! oh whirra!” he cried, as he lay half-stunned. “Oh, it’s kilt I am entirely—dead as mutton at last, an’ no mistake. Sure I might have knowd it—och! worse luck! Didn’t yer poor owld mother tell ye, Phil, that ye’d come to a bad end—she did—”

“Are ye badly hurt?” said Glynn, stooping over his friend in real alarm.

At the sound of his voice Briant ceased his wails, rose into a sitting posture, shaded his eyes with his hand (a most unnecessary proceeding under the circumstances), and stared at him.

“It’s me, Phil; all right, and Ailie. We’ve escaped, and got safe back again.”

“It’s jokin’ ye are,” said Briant, with the imbecile smile of a man who only half believes what he actually sees. “I’m draimin’, that’s it. Go away, avic, an’ don’t be botherin’ me.”

“It’s quite true, though, I assure you, my boy. I’ve managed to give the niggers the slip; and here’s Ailie, too, all safe, and ready to convince you of the fact.”

Phil Briant looked at one and then at the other in unbounded amazement for a few seconds, after which he gave a short laugh as if of pity for his own weakness, and his face assumed a mild aspect as he said softly, “It’s all a draim, av coorse it is!” He even turned away his eyes for a moment in order to give the vision time to dissipate. But on looking round again, there it was, as palpable as ever. Faith in the fidelity of his own eyesight returned in a moment, and Phil Briant, forgetting his bodily pains, sprang to his feet with a roar of joy, seized Ailie in his arms and kissed her, embraced Glynn Proctor with a squeeze like that of a loving bear, and then began to dance an Irish jig, quite regardless of the fact that the greater part of it was performed in the fire, the embers of which he sent flying in all directions like a display of fireworks. He cheered, too, now and then like a maniac—“Oh, happy day! I’ve found ye, have I? after all me trouble, too! Hooray! an’ wan chair more for luck. Av me sowl only don’t lape clane out o’ me body, it’s meself’ll be thankful! But, sure—I’m forgittin’—”

Briant paused suddenly in the midst of his uproarious dance, and seized a burning stick, which he attempted to blow into a flame with intense vehemence of action. Having succeeded, he darted towards an open space a few yards off, in the centre of which lay a large pile of dry sticks. To these he applied the lighted brand, and the next instant a glare of ruddy flame leaped upwards, and sent a shower of sparks high above the forest trees into the sky. He then returned, panting a good deal, but much composed, and said—“Now, darlints, come an’ help me to gather the bits o’ stick; somebody’s bin scatterin’ them all over the place, they have, bad luck to them! an’ then ye’ll sit down and talk a bit, an’ tell me all about it.”

“But what’s the fire for?” asked Ailie.

“Ay, ye may say that,” added Glynn; “we don’t need such a huge bonfire as that to cook our supper with.”

“Och! be aisy, do. It’ll do its work; small doubt o’ that. The cap’n, poor man, ye know, is a’most deranged, an’ they’re every one o’ them off at this good minute scourin’ the woods lookin’ for ye. O, then, it’s sore hearts we’ve had this day! An’ wan was sent wan way, an’ wan another, an’ the cap’n his-self he wint up the river, and, before he goes, he says to me, says he, ‘Briant, you’ll stop here and watch the camp, for maybe they’ll come wanderin’ back to it, av they’ve bin and lost theirselves; an’ mind ye don’t lave it or go to slape. An’ if they do come, or ye hear any news o’ them, jist you light up a great fire, an’ I’ll be on the look-out, an’ we’ll all on us come back as fast as we can.’ Now, that’s the truth, an’ the whole truth, an’ nothin’ but the truth, as the judge said to the witness when he swore at him.”

This was a comforting piece of information to Glynn and Ailie, so, without further delay, they assisted their overjoyed comrade to collect the scattered embers of the fire and boil the kettle. In this work they were all the more energetic that the pangs of hunger were beginning to remind them of the frugal and scanty nature of their last meal.

The bonfire did its work effectually. From all parts of the forest to which they had wandered, the party came, dropping in one by one to congratulate the lost and found pair. Last of all came Captain Dunning and Tim Rokens, for the harpooner had vowed he would “stick to the cap’n through thick and thin.” Tim kept his word faithfully. Through thick tangled brakes and thin mud-swamps did he follow his wretched commander that night until he could scarcely stand for fatigue, or keep his eyes open for sleep; and when the captain