Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/93

Rh Pètire Olifus,' said the fine fellow! 'Anyway you meant me well, and I will drink your health all the same, never fear.'

"'Ho there!' bawled a voice from the deck; 'the anchor's a-peak.'

"I wrung the fisherman's hand, grasped he line, and sprang up the side like a squirrel. "'Come aboard, sir,' said I on reaching the deck.

"'Well,' asked the Captain, 'and where are your trunks?'

"'What does a deck-hand want with a trunk?'

"'Deck-hand? you said passenger.'

"'Passenger, did I? then it was a slip of the tongue. I meant to say, 'have you still room for a hand?'

"'Well, you seem a handy sort of chap,' said the Captain. 'Yes, I have room for a hand, and what's more, at forty francs a month wages; I am a Captain in the East India Company's service, and they pay good money.'

"'If they pay good money, they will have good work, that's all about it.'

"The Captain said no more, neither did I; and the bargain was every bit as binding as if all the attorneys in Holland had had a finger in the pie.

"Next day but one we were on the high seas.

CHAPTER VIII

MAN OVERBOARD HE first land we saw after losing sight of the coast of France was the little island of Porto-Santo lying to the north of Madeira. Madeira itself was hid in a fog, and only became visible two hours later.

"We left the harbour of Funchal to port, and continued our course. The fourth day after doubling Madeira we had a view of the Peak of Teneriffe, which alternately appeared and disappeared in the rolling billows of mist, which looked like another sea beating upon its flanks. We held on without stopping, and were soon sailing a sea that was like one vast cress-bed; thick layers of dark green seaweed, turning to yellow, covered the surface of the ocean and formed those clustering bunches of vegetable matter which sailors call the 'grapes of the tropics.'

"It was not the first time I had made such-like voyages. I had been twice to Buenos Ayres, and I had seen what mariners call blue water, so I was quite in my element and felt at ease. The ship was a stout sailer and made seven or eight knots an hour. Every knot took me a mile further from the Buchold, and what better could I wish for? We crossed the line, and there were the usual high jinks on board. I showed my papers duly authenticated by Father Neptune, and instead of being douched with salt water, I douched other people.

"The Captain was a good sort, and he had broached a puncheon of rum, so that when I turned in I was pretty well half-seas over. Suddenly, as I lay there snoozing, you know, now singing to myself, now snoring, making snatches at the cockroaches, which I took for flying fish, suddenly I thought I saw a tall white figure come down the hatchway and stalk up to my hammock. As it drew nearer, I recognised the Buchold; I may have gone on snoring perhaps, but I left off singing, I give you my word.

"Ah ha!' she cried, 'twice over you have broken my head, once with a skate, and once with a fire-dog; but instead of repenting in sackcloth and ashes, look at the pretty state you are in, you tosspot!'

"I tried to answer her, but the funny thing was, it was she who was talking now, while I had gone dumb.

"'Oh, it's no use,' she went on. 'You are not only dumb, you are paralysed too; just try to escape, now do.'

"She saw quite well what I was about, the confounded creature, and that I was making superhuman efforts to climb out of my hammock; but there, my leg was as stiff as the mainmast and it would have needed the capstan to shift me. So I made the best of it; I hove to and lay there as steady as a buoy.

"Luckily I could shut my eyes and not see her—that was some consolation; but unluckily I could not shut my ears and not hear her. She talked and she scolded and she railed till it became only a buzzing in my ears, without my hearing the separate words, then I ceased to hear even the buzzing, then I heard the bells