Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/59

Rh and particularly white handkerchief. He had taken off his hat and placed it on the deck, when the sun, reflected from a small circular looking-glass, which was fixed inside the crown, cast the glitter full in the skipper's eyes.

"Bust my biler!" he exclaimed with an uncommonly near approach to an oath,—"why what on airth's that?" and starting forward, leaving the vessel to take her chance, looked into the hat in the most perfect wonderment. "Well" he said, "I'm blest if it aint a beautiful contrivance to skear the natives—Ha!—ha!—ha!"

Mr. Weevel appeared to have resigned himself to any fate which might await him. The skipper's hearty laugh somewhat roused him, and divesting himself of the handkerchief, he recovered his hat and regarded himself steadfastly in the glass. His face was covered with red blotches, his eyelids swollen, his forehead lacerated, his hair in disorder, and his shirt bloody: it was no wonder he gazed at himself in horror.

"I told you, you'd spoil your beauty," said the captain: "why didn't you listen to an old hand, like the other gentlemen, eh? It's no use your staring that way into the hat, as if you was trying to look a hole through the crown."

Mr. Weevel still looked on—after a short interval his hat fell from his hands, and, with a deep sigh, he laid himself out upon the deck.

Both Hugh and Slinger were somewhat concerned at the state poor Weevel was in, and kindly raised him from where he lay, and endeavoured to alleviate his distresses; but he was not to be comforted until the scrubs and the mosquitoes were left behind.

"Oh!" said Weevel, after some time, "I will return and write a true account of this abominable place, so different from what I once read."