Doctor Syn on the High Seas - Thorndike Russell - Страница 42
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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
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