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Nat the Naturalist: A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 16. Out On The Blue Water |
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_ CHAPTER SIXTEEN. OUT ON THE BLUE WATER Everything was so new to me that, on embarking at Marseilles, I was never tired of inspecting the large steamer, and trying, with only moderate success, to talk to the French sailors, who, on learning our destination, were very civil; but, after the first day or two, began to joke me about never coming back any more. It was comical work trying to make out what they meant as they began to talk to me about the terrible wild beasts I should meet, and, above all, about the orang-outangs, which they assured me were eight or nine feet high, and would look upon me, they assured me, as a _bonne bouche_. The third day out on the beautiful blue water, as some of the passengers had guns out, and were shooting at the sea-birds for amusement merely, a practice that I should have thought very cruel but for the fact that they never once hit anything, Uncle Dick came up to me on the poop deck and clapped me on the shoulder. "Now, Nat," he said, "there's plenty of room out here for a rifle ball to go humming away as far as it likes without danger to anyone; so get out your rifle and you shall have a practice." "At the sea-gulls, uncle?" I said. "No, no; nonsense!" he said; "we don't shoot sea-gulls with a rifle. I shall start you with a target." "A target, uncle?" I said; "but if you do, we shall leave it all behind in a very short time." "To be sure we shall," he replied, laughing; "and then we'll have another." I ran down and got my rifle out of the cabin, feeling half ashamed to go on deck again when I had fastened on my belt full of cartridges; but I got over my modesty, and joined my uncle, whom I found waiting for me with half a dozen black wine bottles, and as many bladders blown out tightly, while the bottles were empty and firmly corked. "Now, Nat," he said, "here are your targets, and I reckon upon your having half a dozen shots at each before the steamer takes us too far away, unless you manage to sink it sooner." I looked at my uncle to see if he was laughing at me, but he was quite serious, and, in obedience to his order, I loaded and stood ready. "Now, look here, my boy," he said; "this will be rather a difficult task, for both your target and you are in motion. So you must aim as well as you can. I should draw trigger just as the bladder is rising." "But how shall we know if I hit it?" "You are not very likely to hit it, Nat," he said smiling; "but if you do, the bladder will collapse--the bottle be shivered to fragments, and sink. Now let us see." It made me feel nervous to see so many people collect about me, one and all eager to witness my skill, and I knew enough French to understand a good many of their remarks. Some said I must be a very skilful shot, others that I could not shoot at all; and one way and another they disconcerted me so that, when my uncle threw the first bladder over the side, and I saw it floating away, I felt so confused that I let it get some distance before I fired. "Reload," said my uncle; and I did so, and fired again. "Reload," he said; and, having obeyed him, I waited till the bladder was on the top of a wave, and again fired without result. "Again," said my uncle; "don't hesitate, and fire sharply." The bladder was now getting a long way astern and looking very small, so small that I knew I should not hit it, and consequently I felt no surprise that it should go floating away. "Don't lose time, Nat," my uncle continued, just as if it was quite a matter of course that I should go on missing shot after shot. So once more I prepared to fire, and as I did so I saw that two of the French passengers had their telescopes fixed upon the object at which, after taking very careful aim, speck as it seemed, I fired. To my utter astonishment, as the smoke rose I saw no bladder was floating on the waves, a fact of which the lookers-on had already informed me by a round of applause. "He would not hit them when they were close," cried one passenger. "I said, he would not try. It was un grand shot, messieurs, un coup merveilleux." I felt scarlet in the face, and grew the more and more ashamed as first one and then another insisted upon shaking hands with me. "Now, Nat," said my uncle in a low voice, "after that you will lose your character if you do not hit some more." "Pray, don't send out another, uncle," I whispered. "Why not, boy? What does it matter if you do miss? Keep on practising, and never mind what people say. Are you ready?" "Yes, uncle." "Fire, then, as soon as you get a good view of the bladder." I waited until it was about forty yards away, and rising slowly to the top of a wave, when, calculating the distance as well as I could, I fired, and the bladder disappeared. I could not believe it, and expected each moment to see it come back to the surface; but no, there was no bladder visible; and, having reloaded, my uncle sent another afloat, bidding me wait till it was farther away before I fired. I obeyed him and missed. Fired again and missed, but the third time the bladder collapsed and sank, and my reputation as a marksman was made. The French passengers would have petted and spoiled me had not my uncle interfered; and when we were once more alone he began to talk of my success. "You quite exceeded anything I expected, Nat," he said smiling. "How you managed it, my boy, I cannot tell. The first time I set it down to pure accident; but when you repeated it again and again, all I can say, my boy, is that your eyes must be wonderfully good, and your aim and judgment even better. I doubt with all my practice whether I could have been more successful." "I think it must have been chance, uncle," I said, "for I seemed to have no time to aim, and the vessel heaved up so just then." "No, my boy," he replied, "it was not chance, but the result in a great measure of your practice with your gun; but you will not always shoot so well as that. When you come to be out with me in the wilds of one of the islands we visit, and have perhaps been tramping miles through rough forest, you will find it hard work to hit the object at which you aim." "But it will be easier to shoot from the ground than from on shipboard, uncle, will it not?" "For some things yes, my boy, for others no. But wait a bit, Nat, and we shall see." The practice was kept up all through our voyage, and I became quite an adept at breaking floating bottles and other objects that were sent over the side, for the bladders soon came to an end; but our voyage was very uneventful. It was always enjoyable, for there was so much that was fresh to see. I never complained about the heat, which was very great, although people were lying about under awnings, while I used to get into the chains, or the rigging below the bowsprit, so as to gaze down into the wonderfully clear water and watch the dolphins and bonita as they darted through the sunlit depths with such ease and grace. Sometimes I have wished that I could be a fish, able with a sweep or two of my powerful tail to dart myself through the water just as I pleased, or float at any depth, keeping up with the huge steamer as it was driven on. Then a change would come over me, and I would think to myself: Well, I'm very glad I'm not a fish; for just as I would be watching some lovely mackerel-like fellow with a flashing back of mottled blue and purple, some monster ten times his size would make a dart at him and engulf him in his capacious throat. And as I watched the larger fish seize their food, it seemed to me that once they could get within easy range they seemed to suck their prey into their jaws, drawing it in with the great rush of water they sent through their gills. It was not tempting at such times and above all when one used to see a thin grey fellow, six or eight feet long, seeming to sneak by the side of the ship, or just astern, where there was an eddy. Every now and then it would turn half over and show the pale under parts as it made a snatch at something that looked good to eat; and after a good many tries the sailors managed to catch one by means of a hook baited with a piece of ham that had been condemned as high. It was only about six feet long, and when it lay on the wet deck thrashing about with its tail I thought that after all a shark was not such a dangerous-looking creature as I expected, and I said so to my uncle. "Think not, Nat?" he said. "Why, no, uncle, I don't think I should be afraid of a shark; I think I could catch such a fellow as that with a rod and line." "Ah! Nat, some of them run up to fifteen or twenty feet in length," he said; "and they are awfully savage brutes. Such a one as this would be enough to kill a man." "He don't look like it, uncle," I said. "Why, look here!" I ran to where the shark lay, and stooping down, seized it with both hands by the thin part just before where the tail forked, meaning to give it a shake and drag the brute along the deck; but just as I got tight hold the creature seemed to send a wave down its spine, and with one flip I was sent staggering across the deck to fall heavily at full length, the crew and passengers around roaring with laughter at my discomfiture. I was so angry and mortified that I jumped up, opened my great jack-knife, and was rushing at the shark, when my uncle laid his hand upon my arm. "Don't be foolish, Nat, but take your lesson like a man. You will not despise the strength of a shark for the future." "Why, it was like touching a great steel spring, uncle," I said. "If anything I should say that the backbone of a shark has more power in it when set in motion than a steel spring, Nat," he said. "There, now, our friend is helpless, and we can examine him in peace." For, after thrashing the deck with a series of tremendous blows with his tail, the shark had his quietus given to him with a few blows of a hatchet, and as he lay upon the deck my uncle pointed out to me the peculiarity of the monster's structure, and after we had examined his nasty sharp triangular teeth in the apparently awkwardly placed mouth, I was shown how it was that a shark had such wonderful power of propelling itself through the water, for in place of having an ordinary fin-like tail, made up of so many bones with a membrane between, the shark's spine is continued right along to the extremity of the upper curve of its propeller, the other curve being comparatively small. The flying-fish in the Red Sea have been described too often for it to be necessary for me to say anything about the beauty of these fishy swallows, but we saw hundreds of them dart out of the sea, skim along for a distance, and then drop in again. Then there were glimpses had in the deep clear blue--for that was the colour I found the Red Sea--of fishes with scales of orange, vermilion, and gold, bright as the gorgeous sunsets that dyed sea and sky of such wondrous hues evening after evening before darkness fell all at once, and the great stars, brighter, bigger, and clearer than I had ever seen them before, turned the heavens into a vast ocean of gems. Day and night seemed to me to follow one another with wonderful rapidity, till one morning, as the steamer was panting and throbbing on its way, my uncle pointed to what looked like a low distant haze far away on our right. "Do you see those mountains, Nat?" he said. "Mountains, uncle! Are these mountains?" "Yes, my boy, in a land that I could find it in my heart to visit, only that is not quite wild enough for our purpose." "What place is it, then?" I said, gazing eagerly at the faint distant line. "Sumatra, Nat;" and as he spoke the long-shaped island, so familiar on the maps at school, rose before my eyes, and with it came Java, Celebes, Borneo, and New Guinea, places that were before long to be the objects of our quest. _ |
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