Doctor Syn on the High Seas - Thorndike Russell (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

in. Then, approaching, he said:

“Shuhshuhgah.”

Syn and Mipps were standing aside to allow the father to embrace his

son, whom he must have thought dead, but the son would not allow this.

Instead he placed the Englishmen’s hands upon those of the Chief, and in

the Indian tongue told how they had risked their lives and saved his.

The old man replied with fitting thanks, which Syn not only understood,

but answered, much to their astonishment, in the same language.

Mipps said, “Ere, sir, I’m missing all this. Wish you’d talk

English.”

After Shuhshuhgah’s leg had been re-dressed, the Chieftain conducted

them to his own hut, and gave them rum and light flour-cakes. Mipps, who

was a good trencherman at any time, swallowed his portion in two

mouthfuls and looked around for more.

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At this, Shuhshuhgah smiled and said, “Do not spoil your stomach for

the victory feast, my little brave. There will be eating and dancing to

fill by sunset. Do you not smell the cattle roasting?”

Mipps sniffed and nodded, and stayed his gnawing stomach with that

reflection. He was glad, however, to find that there was no such

restriction put upon the rum, in that it was as powerful as fire.

All this while the warriors were returning with scalps. The cattle

had been rounded up, and the oxen upon the spit poles were roasted. With

great ceremony the Chief sat with his son, Syn and Mipps around him.

Before the feast started, the singing poet of the tribe sang of the

killing, thanking God for the bravery of the pal e-faces who had saved

their beloved Shuhshuhgah, whose own ingenuity with the Clegg fly came

in for many stanzas of praise. There followed a dance, in which the

scene was re -enacted, and with great effect, since Syn and Mipps,

falling into their humour, loaned not only their jackets and threecornered hats to those representing them, but sword and cutlass as well.

Mipps having no stature, a little boy was picked to dance his part, and

Mipps applauded this urchin’s caperings more than any. This and the rum

so excited this admiration, that upon the conclusion of the dance, Mipps

leapt to his feet and, shouting a nautical tune, executed a very

spirited hornpipe, to the wonder of the Indians.

The feast itself went on for hours, during which, with much strange

ceremony, Syn and Mipps were made blood-brothers of the tribe, and given

many a pipe of peace. Indian trophies of value were presented to them,

Mipps being specially delighted with a barrel of rum for his own

consumption.

“This is the life for me, sir,” he told his master. “Better than

being a pirate. When I hornpiped aboard the Sulphur Pit—the devil rot

its timbers—an extra allowance was all we could expect. But a barrel.

This must be that there place in the Psalms we used to sing about in

Dymchurch choir, ‘Land flowin’ with milk and honey’, but better, since I

always had more taste for rum than milk.”

A spacious hut had been placed at their disposal, and just before

dawn Syn and Mipps retired to it for a much-needed rest. For some time

Syn lay on his back upon a comfortable couch of grass and skins and with

his eyes to the thatched roof he thought. At last, seeing that Mipps had

opened one eye from his bed at the other end of the hut in order to pat

his barrel of rum, and to take from it a further night-cap, Syn said:

“I have found my new name, Mipps. When Syn disappears into the death

which I have invented for him, I shall live on as one Clegg. I shall

drive that Nicholas into a panic, just as that fly drove the cattle

before him. I think now we shall have no difficulty in finding that

rascal. These tribesmen of our will scent him out for me. How do you

fancy serving Captain Clegg?”

“It’s a good enough name, sir,” replied Mipps, “so long as Doctor Syn

ain’t really turned his parson’s toes up. I’ll serve him. But don’t go

altering my name. I’d forget all about it in my next drunk.”

“Very well, then Captain Clegg and Mister Mipps let it be,” said Syn.

“Harking back, Mipps, to that morning upon Lympne Hill when we first

met, I don’t think w e imagined that we should be sleeping like this by

the light of Red Indians’ fires.

“If they worries you, sir,” said Mipps, “I’ll blow ‘em out.”

“No, let them bide. I like red fire,” chuckled Syn. “I carry so much

in my heart. Red hate, Mister Mipps. Red hate.”

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“Aye, sir,” replied Mipps. “But when we spits this Nicholas through his

gizzard, when then? Are you for home and pulpits again, or for more of

these jovial adventures?”

“I will tell you that answer when our enemy is dead. Till then we

follow. Our way may be short or long.”

Chapter 14

Clegg’s Harpoon

The next words of Doctor Syn’s Odyssey can be best described in his

own words, which he penned at sea to his friend Antony Cobtree of

Dymchurch. As things befell, however, it took many a long year reaching

its destination, for having taken the pains to write it, the Doctor’s

caution persuaded him to keep it back, and it lay in his sea -chest till

he ultimately returned to Romney Marsh.

My dear Tony (it read),

In the hopes of meeting with some home-bound ship, which may carry

these lines to you, I am writing in my cabin aboard the whale-ship

Ezekiel, which is at the moment lying becalmed in the Southern Pacific.

More moons ago than I care to count, I wrote to you of our adventures

with the Redskins. Should it reach you, you will by this have read how

my blood -brothers of the tribe, got news of our enemy and of how

Shuhshuhgah, whom no arguments of mine could induce to stay behind, your

humble servant, and my faithful Dymchurch carpenter, Mipps, set out upon

his trail.

We got on our enemy’s track easily enough, and followed him,

sometimes hard upon his heels. Even in the larger towns we found that

Nicholas had not kept quiet, and we could always depend upon some gossip

concerning him at the chief inns. It was in one of these that a

garrulous landlord told us that our friend the Captain journeyed with

his wife and son towards the little port of New Bedford in

Massachusetts, where he intended to fit out a trading vessel , which he

would sail himself. This gossip rang true to me, when our Indian told me

that from this port there sailed many a whale-ship for long voyages.

Since

these ships have no destination but whales, Nicholas would think such a

voyage a good means of giving me the slip. Other gossip’s confirming

this, we set out horses’ heads for this same port. On reaching it, we

made our way to the harbour, where we saw one of these whale -ships

casting off. We watched her as she cleared the roads for the open sea. A

sturdy little craft, but pretty too under her full-set canvas. Mingling

with the crowd, who were whale-minded to a man, we learned that her name

was Isaish. We watched this valiant little vessel disappear upon her

hunting quest, and then proceeded to an inn, where we made inquiries

concerning Nicholas. As you know, I am, my dear Tony, something of a

fatalist. Well, I needed all my philosophy then; for would you credit

it? The Isaiah had been purchased by Nicholas, and he had manned her

with experienced whalemen, and we had seen her sail not knowing that he

was aboard. And, Tony, he had taken her with him and the boy. At first I

could have wept for rage, but my philosophy told me that I, too, must