CHAPTER V.

HOW DICK PRACTISED HIGH DIVING.

Many people find the run across the Great Australian Bight a dull matter; and, indeed, if you should ever find yourself returning from the other side of the world, it is apt to be the longest part of all the long six weeks at sea. But to little Dick Lester, afloat for the first time, it was a voyage full of marvel and delight.

Dick did not give his masters at school an especially easy time; there was, I fear, nothing of the saintly little boy about him; nor did any of them ever have reason to suspect him of any especial cleverness. He was a very ordinary, healthy youngster, unencumbered by much brain power. But he did respectably at school and more than respectably at sports, because he was quite unable to take things easily. There was in his nature a streak of keenness that made the pursuit of the moment the most interesting thing possible. He flung himself heart and soul and generally with all his alert young body, too, into all he did. Naturally, his very keenness often made him make mistakes; but at least it saved him from dullness. "He's a provoking little animal," a tired form-master once said of him; "but, thank goodness, he's no slug!"

Being so designed, partly by Nature and partly by parents who had themselves that strong quality of keenness, it may readily be imagined that a ship opened up to Dick a storehouse of novelty and opportunity. He made his way into every permitted corner, and since he did not do it bumptiously, he found a welcome where a cheeky youngster would have been promptly ejected. The chief engineer succumbed to the longing face at the entrance to his mysterious domain, and let him spend hours in the engine room, where the roar and beat of the mighty machinery was the purest music in Dick's ears. He penetrated even to the stokehold, where, stripped of his outer garments, he toiled eagerly with a stoker's shovel, flinging great lumps of coal into the yawning mouths of the furnaces, where the flames leaped redly. There was something in feeling that, even for a moment, he was helping the onward rush of the ship that brought him nearer to Fremantle and his father. He stopped only when he could no longer hold the heavy shovel, and the fourth engineer, laughing, hustled him from the stifling stokehold into the not particularly fresh air of the engine room, which seemed to Dick an ozone bath by comparison.

The men made him free of their quarters, and spun him long yarns of the sea, more or less true, while they taught him intricacies of splicing and knotting that are generally hidden from the landsman. They made him highly technical in speech, so that he would have shuddered at calling the companion a staircase, or in misusing such ordinary expressions as "abaft the binnacle." He saw their dim and smellful sleeping accommodation, and came away with his small soul full of wrath that men so admirable should be herded in dens so uninviting. They took care of him in more ways than one; he saw a sturdy apprentice roundly cuffed on the head for having made some remark in his presence of which the older men did not approve. Dick had not caught the remark--which was as well. It made him rather uncomfortable to see the boy cuffed, but having great respect for the cuffer, a boatswain of wonderful ability where knots were concerned, he took it for granted that everything was all right. He told them stories of station life in return for their sea yarns, and altogether spent some of his happiest hours in the fo'c'sle.

The baggage officer took him into the upper hold and held forth learnedly on the art of handling cargo; the cook showed him the galley, with its rows of shining copper pots and pans, its contrivances for washing and peeling potatoes by the hundred, and other strange devices--which so enthralled Dick that he obtained permission to come again, and to bring his mother, who was no less interested than he. He even penetrated into the mysterious regions where the stewards lurk when off duty, and had no small hand in the fun behind the scenes, when the stewards gave a concert in aid of the funds for seamen--a Christy minstrel entertainment, at which the performers appeared with faces so well and truly blacked that for the remainder of the voyage they had a murky look sadly out of keeping with their otherwise spic and span appearance. But the crowning point of Dick's voyage was when the Captain found him on deck very early one morning--so early that no other passengers were astir, and, first swearing him to secrecy, took him to his state-room under the bridge where they hob-nobbed over an early cup of tea, and afterwards showed him chronometers and sextants, chart-room and navigating room, and the forbidden glory of the bridge itself; a condescension that left Dick gasping with delight and amazement. He did not know that the Captain had a little son in Perth; another boy with an eager face, for whose sake the great man had a soft corner in his heart for all small boys.

With so many distractions, it was natural that the days should fly quickly. But in addition there was the sea itself, which Dick loved; an Australian sea at its best, with bright sunshine, dancing blue water, and a long, easy swell that barely rocked the _Moondarra_ as she steamed westward. They passed but few ships. A great English liner overtook them one morning, passing so close that greetings could be shouted from deck to deck; a P. and O. boat, her black and tan painting and her winking brasswork making her a heartsome sight. Beside her, the _Moondarra_, which had seemed to Dick enormous, became quite a small affair. The liner was outward bound, most of the people on her decks were Australians, off on the long trip to the old countries that every son and daughter of the Southern Cross longs to see some day. Once there passed another inter-state boat, like themselves; now and then a little tramp steamer, red with rust and generally grimy. And one day came the most beautiful sight of the sea, a great four-master, with every sail set, swinging by to Sydney for wheat. She came down towards them, until she was quite close--then, tacking suddenly, she swung away, the sunlight, as she went about, turning every sail to glittering silver. Dick had no breakfast that morning--he remained glued to the rail until the beautiful ship was only a tall shadow on the horizon.

At all odd moments during the day there were games; deck-tennis, bull-board, quoits, cricket. Dick was handicapped in being the only boy of his age on board, so that he found it hard to get a suitable partner, but some of the elder girls took him into their games, and on the whole he had a good time, though, to Dick, girls were curious beings, with mysterious and incomprehensible ways. He told his mother one day that he could not imagine why any fellow ever wanted to get married--"unless it was to you, of course," he added, gallantly. To which Mrs. Lester listened gravely, and did not even make the annoying rejoinder that some day he would think differently--to which species of remark grown-ups are so prone. Merle Warner remained the most incomprehensible female of all. Circumstances conspired to throw the two children together, for the elders quickly made friends; the Warners were pleasant, kindly people, and, as table companions, they were a good deal brought into association with Mrs. Lester. Mr. Warner and Dick had struck up a great friendship; the big man liked his small and unobtrusive cabin-mate and felt for him something of the protective feeling he would have experienced had it been his own little lad who lay asleep in the opposite bunk each night when he came to bed. They used to tramp the deck together in the early mornings and after dinner, and "yarn" of station matters, of the ways of bullocks--and most inexhaustible theme of all--of horses. Dick had been his father's constant companion until Mr. Lester sailed for England; he had learned a good deal of station affairs, and where his knowledge failed his love of the subject was enough to make him a good mate. He used to beg for stories of the Western life, that held so many differences from his own, and Mr. Warner was ready enough to tell of his early days, with their struggle and adventure. Dick thought him a very wonderful man. He told his stories very simply; they were, indeed, very commonplace happenings to him, and on the rare occasions that he became enthusiastic it was in speaking of the part his wife had played. "You take it from me, son, women are pretty wonderful," he said. "She's plump and placid and comfortable enough now--but I've seen her holding off a crew of yelling blacks with only an old shot gun. She never was afraid--or if she was, she never showed it; and that's the most wonderful of all." Dick agreed, and thereafter looked at Mrs. Warner with eyes of awe, which considerably puzzled the cheery, motherly woman.

Possibly it was her father's friendship for Dick that made Merle so definitely unfriendly. She was devoted to him; her mother and Bobby counted for something to her, but her father ranked before the whole world. It hit her hard to see him make a companion of this new boy. She was a child of a queer, silent nature--her own worst enemy, for she struggled against her better impulses. Something in her made her rude, unfriendly, unforgiving. So much was evident, and led to punishments and unpopularity. What was not so apparent was that the queer streak made her very unhappy as well. "I know jolly well I'm a pig," she had said once to her father, "only I don't seem to be able to be anything but a pig. Why do people get born like that?" To which Mr. Warner, not understanding in the least, had replied, laughing, that the sooner she left off being a pig the better for everyone. Merle knew that very well. But the bad fairy who had dealt her the wrong kind of temper at her christening was as yet too strong for her.

She could not make friends freely; not like Bobby, whom she sometimes almost hated for the ease with which he fell in love with everyone. Everyone liked Bobby, too. He was so merry, so full of quaint chatter, so ready to make the best of the world. Their trip to Sydney had been as complete joy to Bobby as it had meant misery to Merle. They had stayed with a big family of boy cousins; town boys, knowing nothing of the country that Merle loved, and wildly keen on swimming, yachting and school sports--all of them sealed books to Merle. Her shyness and sullenness had meant rare fun to them, and they had teased her with all the thoroughness of public school boys. She hated them all, with an intensity that almost frightened her; for their sake she was ready to hate all boys, and Dick was merely another member of the abhorred species. That her father should take to him instantly was almost more than she could bear.

Dick was civil to her, in his off-hand boy fashion. He was too busy and too happy to worry about a cross-grained little girl. If she had cared to be friendly he would have met her half-way, but as she showed him very definitely that she did not want him, he was quite willing to let her alone. It was sometimes a little awkward to be paired off with her--to have an elder say cheerfully, "Run away, Merle, and play with Dick." A ship, however, is a place of many corners, and after rounding the nearest it was an easy matter to go off in different directions. Merle would say, "I'm not comin' with you!" Dick would reply, "Right oh!" and that would end the matter.

"You know," Mrs. Lester said to Dick--they were talking in her cabin one evening--"I'm really sorry for that little girl. She gives herself such a bad time. And if she would only let herself be nice, she would be quite nice."

"You always think people are nice, mother-est," said Dick. He was lying on the spare bunk, his hands crossed under his head, glad to keep still after a hard set of tennis. "But why shouldn't she behave decently? No one does anything to annoy the poor thing!"

"N-no." Mrs. Lester hesitated; she did not choose to hint to Dick that Merle might be jealous. "I think she feels herself out in the cold--Bobby is so attractive, and everyone likes him, and of course she is different."

"She's a silly ass, then," said Dick, unexpectedly. "Nothing's wrong with her looks, is there, if only she didn't seem so jolly cross?"

"Why, no--nothing, of course," Mrs. Lester answered. A vision of Merle's face, square and defiant, came to her. "Only, of course, Bobby is such a friendly little man. I wish she would chum up with you, Dick. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

"Well, a fellow doesn't always want a girl at his heels," Dick said. "She's only a kid, too"--with the condescension that thirteen feels for eleven. "But, of course, she could come along if she liked--if you want her to, mother." He grinned all over his sunburnt face. "But what's the good of talking?--a team of bullocks wouldn't bring her!"

And that seemed so far beyond argument that Mrs. Lester held her peace.

Nevertheless, despite Merle's attitude, the friendship between the Warners and the Lesters flourished. Bobby frankly adored Dick, and as Dick didn't mind admitting that he "liked small kids," Bobby trotted at his heels and, if he could not actually be with him, remained glued to the spot if he could watch him playing games. Mrs. Warner, relieved from a good deal of attendance on her small son, found Mrs. Lester a congenial spirit; the Lester deck-chairs were pitched near the Warner encampment, in a sheltered angle of the deck, and they grew to know each other with the swiftness of board-ship friendships--a week at sea having the curious faculty of making perfect strangers better acquaintances than if they had lived in the same township for a year. Mr. Warner hovered about like a large guardian angel, glad to see his wife enjoying the most restful portion of her trip. Even Merle fell a little under the spell of Mrs. Lester's charm. She was so used to people who found fault with her that it was almost amazing to know someone who never seemed to notice bad temper or black looks. Mrs. Lester's attitude was that no one--not even Merle--could possibly mean to be rude or unpleasant. It somehow made Merle feel that rudeness and unpleasantness were cheap and nasty.

Their fellow passengers were, on the whole, a pleasant set. Miss Simpson and the "dear bishop's" wife were apt to be a little overpowering; the bishop himself made elephantine efforts at being jolly, because of a peculiar belief that only by so doing could he succeed in understanding Australians, and thereby puzzled very much the Australians themselves, who liked him far better on the rare occasions when he forgot to be playful and was just plain bishop. There was enough musical talent on board to provide excellent concerts each evening, after which energetic people danced on the deck until an unfeeling quarter-master came along relentlessly to extinguish the lights. The captain and his officers made friends with everyone and kept things moving with the quiet tact that seems part of the training of a passenger boat's officers--and answered questions innumerable concerning the ways of the _Moondarra_ and the wonders of the deep, such questions being an unfailing part of the routine of each voyage. So the quiet days passed swiftly enough, too swiftly for Dick, who, but that Fremantle meant his father, would willingly have had it twice as far away.

He came on deck one afternoon, after an hour spent in the fo'c'sle; it was their last day at sea, and he had been saying good-bye to his friend the boatswain, who had presented him with a marvellous trophy--a full-rigged ship, built in the most astounding fashion, inside a bottle. Dick had inspected this curiosity with bewildered awe, never dreaming that it might actually become his own; and when the boatswain gave it to him as a farewell gift he was speechless with gratitude. He carried it carefully to his cabin, and stowed it away. Then he ran up in search of his mother.

He came out on the starboard side, where a keen wind whistled that had driven nearly everyone away in search of shelter on the port deck. The only people in view were Bobby Warner and Miss Simpson; and it was evident that Bobby was very naughty. He was perched on the top of the rail, holding lightly to a stanchion, his handsome little face glowing with delighted mischief. Miss Simpson--who had the faculty of arousing all that was worst in him--was lecturing him severely.

"Are you not ashamed, Bobby? Come down at once, you naughty little boy!"

"S'an't," said Bobby calmly.

"Come down, or I shall bring your father to whip you."

"He won't," said Bobby, unmoved. "He never does."

"So I should think," said Miss Simpson, with bitterness. "It is high time he began. Come down immediately."

"You go 'way, ole fing," Bobby said, unmoved. "Don't like you."

"No one likes naughty boys like you," returned the lady, severely, "Will you come down, or must I pull you down?"

"Don't 'oo touch me," said Bobby, meeting her eyes fearlessly, as she stood angry and irresolute. "Dis is my pony--I'm goin' to ride it."

He threw one leg over the rail as he spoke, balancing his slender body easily. Miss Simpson uttered a muffled shriek, and sprang to hold him, gripping at his knee.

"'Oo get away!" Bobby threatened. He twisted himself from her grasp, bending outwards, just as Dick came upon the scene. Dick gave a low whistle.

"Come down out of that, Bob, you silly ass!"

Bobby started at the voice. Simultaneously the ship rolled, and then a shriek from Miss Simpson rent the air and she clutched at him unavailingly as he lost his balance and fell. The list of the ship sent him clear of her, down to the lazy green swell, flecked with foam from the bow. He gave one cry--a frightened baby's scream for help. The water choked it almost unheard.

Dick did not hesitate. He reflected afterwards with shame that he did not even shout, "Man overboard!" as do all well-conducted rescuers; instead he gave an incoherent cry of, "Coming, old chap!" as he swung himself up by the stanchion and dived outwards. It did not seem far--he had often dived from the top of the gallery round the swimming baths near his school. What he was not prepared for was the icy coldness of the water. It caught his breath--he came up blinded and gasping, unable for a second to see anything. Then, just as despair seized him, he caught sight of a white jersey a few yards away on the crest of a wave, and flung himself through the water towards it. His fingers closed on it, and the wave swallowed them both.

They came up again after what seemed an eternity. Dick's head was bursting, and his whole body numb. Mechanically his training in life-saving came back to him, and he turned on his back, still gripping Bobby, from whose little body the breath had been knocked so effectually by the fall that he was merely a log in the water, unable to struggle. It was as well for Dick, for there was no fight left in him. The icy water chilled him, body and soul; he could only keep afloat, with his fingers twisted into Bobby's jersey. His mother's face seemed to float before his tired eyes.

Back on the _Moondarra_ Miss Simpson's despairing shrieks had been drowned by the long hoot of the steamer's siren. The officer on duty on the bridge had seen Dick's dive; almost before he had struck the water the steamer's engines were reversed, life-belts had gone skimming overboard, and a boat's crew was working desperately at the davits swinging the boat outboard. Quicker still two others had flung themselves after the boys--Dick's friend, the boatswain, and the thin, silent man who sat at their table. It was he who reached them first; his voice came to Dick as though muffled in wool, like the voice of a person very far away.

"Keep still, old chap; I'll take the kid."

Bobby's weight was lifted, but Dick could not detach his clutching fingers from his jersey. He saw, as in a mist, a face near him in the water, but the cruel cold held him, choked him, gripped his very heart. He moved his free hand feebly, resisting, as he knew he must, an overpowering instinct to grasp at the new-comer. Another voice came, even further away.

"I can manage this one," it said. There was comfort in that, since Dick knew he could not manage anything more. The waves seemed to be swinging him in a great cold bed--up and down, up and down. A hand was under his head, more restful than the softest pillow he had ever known; he let himself sink back with a little sigh, just as the blue sky above him flickered suddenly and turned black. Close, very close, was the sound of oars working furiously in rowlocks, but he did not hear them.

The _Moondarra_ was turning in a great circle, her railing black with people. Women were clustering round the two mothers, who stood silently watching the sea that was fighting out beyond for the little lives; and there were men holding back Mr. Warner, who could swim scarcely at all, but had been in the very act of flinging himself over the rail when an officer caught him. "If Flanagin and the other fellow can't get them, no one can," the crisp voice said. "You'll only complicate matters if you go in." And after that Bobby's father stood still, gripping at the rail, not feeling the hands that held him mechanically.

The long moments dragged themselves away--how long they seemed, first from the time that the two little heads had been a tiny speck together on the sea, and then until the other heads and the long, clean overarm strokes had forged through the water towards them! Then, longest of all came the terse waiting while the boat, lowered with swift dexterity, reached the water--the waiting oars ready to pull the instant she touched--the straining muscles flinging themselves into each stroke that sent her flying across the long green swells. A sudden, broken cheer came from the ship, mingled with a woman's sobbing cry.

"Oh, they have them, they have them!"

The two mothers, silent yet, caught at each other's hands. Beyond, strong arms were lifting the boys together into the boat; then, strain their eyes as they might, they could see nothing, for two sailors were working over the little figures, wrapping them in rugs; they had to loosen Dick's fingers by force from Bobby's jersey. Others were hauling the rescuers on board, the boat turning even as they were pulled in; and then she came racing back to the ship. On the bridge the captain glanced at his watch, with a flash of professional pride.

"Seven minutes from the time of the alarm--not bad going!" he said.

The cheering broke out again as the boat swung alongside, and then died out uncertainly. Was it a time to cheer? The little muffled figures lay still and stiff, white faces upturned to the towering ship. Mr. Warner's heart seemed to stand still as the doctor suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.

"Bring your wife and Mrs. Lester to the hospital," he said. "I have everything ready."

A hush seemed to fall upon the ship, long after the boat had been hauled slowly upwards, and waiting arms had received the motionless bundles and borne them swiftly to the hospital. The steady beat of the re-awakened engines bore the _Moondarra_ westward; but on the decks passengers stood about in little knots, with their eyes ever wandering to the doorway behind which the dripping procession had disappeared. The captain came out once, shaking his head at the eager inquiries.

"Both unconscious," he said. "I'm afraid----" and stopped.

There was a sick hush on the decks as the Bishop--no longer playful--came forward, holding up his hand for silence.

"If you will come with me to the saloon," he said, "we can do our best for the children. They need our prayers."

The people flocked after him--card-playing men and half-grown girls, and women who sobbed as they went. There were sobs round the saloon as the Bishop prayed--simple, manly words that asked for help and mercy. He finished, and there was silence, and then a cheer from the deck and a steward burst in.

"Doctor says they're all right!"

In the sick bay, Mrs. Warner held Bobby to her like a baby--a bundle of hot blankets, in which his sleeping face nestled peacefully. Dick lay in a cot, also a mound of blankets. He opened his eyes and a smile flickered weakly on his lips as he saw his mother's face.

"Mother-est!" he whispered.

She put her head down beside him, trembling--one arm across him, holding him to her. He gave a half sigh of utter contentment, nestling to her, as he fell asleep.