CHAPTER XX.

RADAMA PUFFADDER.

It was a pleasant sunny morning when Ethel was roused by Morley tapping on her cabin-door, and making the cheerful announcement that land was in sight, almost ahead, so she and Rose made a rapid toilette and joined him and the rest of their friends on deck.

The south-west wind held steadily, and its breath rippled all the morning sea in wavelets that seemed tipped with gold. The sunshine, bright and warm, spread a yellow tint over all the western quarter of the sky. In dark outline, as if tinted with indigo, about ten miles distant, rose a mountain, in the form of a sugar-loaf, blending at its base with lesser ones that were near to the sea.

"Madagascar, Ethel," said Morley, with a bright smile, as he pointed to the coast.

"And yonder headland is Cape St. Mary," added Dr. Heriot. "I should know the place pretty well by this time."

"Why, Leslie?" asked Rose.

"Because I see it now for the fourth time."

"Poor Leslie!" said Rose; "and you have gone those long voyages so often, when I knew nothing of them."

"Or--of me, Rose."

"That does seem so strange now!"

"However, Rose, I have no intention of voyaging much more, 'for there's a good time coming,' as the song says."

Morrison had the wheel, and the captain desired him to "hug the land, and keep close in shore, as he wanted to procure fresh water."

"I find that the needle varies at times in these waters, sir," said Morrison.

"Aye--but our patent steering compass always holds true."

Though the long and remarkable coast they were approaching is flat and low near the shore, the sea around it is without hidden danger in the form of shoals, rocks, or reefs, and water fifty fathoms deep can be found within four miles of it.

As the ship drew nearer, objects became more distinct--strange trees, gigantic plants, and fantastic wigwams, like bee-hives; and after breakfast, Ethel and Rose, with their op era-glasses, could see these features plainly, and particularly a headland, covered with tufted palm-trees.

"And that is Cape St. Mary?"

"Yes," replied Morley, who, to support her, had one arm round Ethel and another round the mizzen-shrouds, for the deck was slippery with the morning dew and the spray that flew over it now and then, for the ship careened well over beneath the breeze, which was now almost abeam.

"Then we are out of the Mozambique Channel?"

"Yes; or nearly so. By noon we shall be quite out of it."

"Thank Heaven! I wish we were only a little nearer Port Louis."

"We shall soon be so, Ethel, after leaving this shore."

"Don't deem me foolish, dearest; but, after all we have suffered, I always tremble when I think of--of----"

"What, Ethel?

"Of those three piratical proas which the captain speaks about. I dreamt of them last night, and saw them quite full of wild black fellows, with spears, plumes, and war-paint--just like the pictures we have seen of the savages who killed Captain Cook."

"The coast hereabout looks wild and solitary indeed."

"A few miles eastward lies Fort Dauphin," said the doctor; "it was an old French settlement, but was deserted and ruined long ago."

Anxious, we have said, to procure water, the captain stood close in towards one of the little isles that lie about the south-western extremity of Madagascar; and now every man on board, except the convalescent Mr. Basset, had to work hard in taking in and stowing some of the fore-and-aft canvas, getting the kedge anchors and warps ready, having the boats clear, and the soundings had to be attended to without intermission.

A curiously-built native boat was now seen approaching swiftly from the shore, having suddenly shot out of a creek. It was very long, very low, and was paddled by two men.

"Hollo, ladies!" cried Noah Gawthrop, who was busy in the remaining quarter-boat, getting the fall-tackles clear; "look at this swell coming along-side in a cocked hat, like a wice-admiral o' the fleet! But I beg parding, marm," he added, suddenly, as Ethel adjusted the screw of her lorgnette, "you mustn't look at him, for he ain't nothin' on but the cocked hat and a necklace."

"Sheep 'hoy!" cried a shrill voice, as the boat rose and fell on the waves.

"What do you want, darkey?" asked Noah.

"You savey me?" cried the Malay.

"No, I am blow'd if I do," was the surly reply.

"What for you no savey me?" remonstrated the other; "yam, yam--sell, sell--nice, nice, nice."

Then he held up an inverted bottle, to show that it was empty.

"By Jove! 'tis old Captain Puffadder!" exclaimed Captain Phillips, as the native boat came sheering alongside, and a white-headed Malay, who literally had no other attire than a necklace of crystal beads and an old battered naval cocked hat, which some man-o'-war wag had given him, relinquishing his carved teak-wood paddle, caught with great dexterity a line which was cast to him, and made it fast to a round knob at the prow of his boat, which, as the line became taut, fell at once into the ship's wake astern.

"It is old Radama Puffadder, whom we saw on our two last voyages. He sells vegetables and fruit to any ship that comes close enough in shore," said Heriot, looking round for the young ladies; but when the boat had come nearer, the utter want of attire displayed by the two Malays had fairly driven the Misses Basset and Nance Folgate down the stair of the companion, where the merry but half-stifled laugh of Rose could be heard from time to time.

"A sly old file!" said Mr. Foster, looking over the taffrail.

"How are you, Puff, my boy?" asked the doctor; "what have you got for us?"

The old Malay, who was hideously ugly, and whose bare, attenuated form was brown as old mahogany, lifted his cocked hat, and replied in what seemed an unintelligible torrent of consonants, and then held up a turtle by one of its hind feet, after which he grinned and yelled.

He and his companion next hauled in the tow-line, hand over hand, till the boat was close to the lee mizzen-chains--the chances of being swamped seemed nothing to Captain Puffadder--and to Morley, who stood on the channel-plate, he handed on board whatever he had to offer, and in a short time there was on deck a goodly pile of the yellow-bellied gourds for boiling and eating, with butter and milk; bananas, to roast like apples; peas, beans, and water-melons; brown-skinned onions, and golden-coloured oranges and lemons; together with a great sprawling turtle, the sight of which would have made an alderman's eyes twinkle; and there, too, were six brace of wood-pigeons.

For all this seasonable stock, the captain paid him by six bottles of strong alcohol, three boxes of lucifer-matches, and a dollar or two, and these coins, when cut into four, form the circulating medium in the "Great Britain of Africa."

The captain and the doctor, who seemed to understand and amuse themselves with the jargon of "Captain" Puffadder, inquired where fresh water was to be had, and he led them to understand that, under the brow of the cliff to which he pointed, there was a creek in one of the islets; that there several springs flowed, and safe anchorage would be found.

"This will suit admirably," said Phillips, to Bartelot. "We shall lie there a couple of days, for some of our rigging requires overhauling sorely."

"Won't you come on board, Puff, and pilot us, while we run in?" asked Mr. Foster.

"I no savey _that_--no can do," replied the Malay, as he let his boat drop astern, and, taking a long pull at one of the rum-bottles, he grinned with satisfaction and handed it to his longing companion.

"Won't you remain with us till we have filled our water-tank?" cried the captain over the taffrail.

Again the dingy Malay grinned and shook his white head, which looked as if it had been snowed over, and, pointing shoreward, to indicate that he must return, cast off the tow-line, after which his boat, that bobbed up and down like a cork, was rapidly dropped astern.

The wind was now becoming light, and, with Morley and Heriot stripped to their shirt-sleeves, pulling ahead in the quarter-boat, and Mr. Foster in her bow, sounding carefully every minute with hand-lead, the ship was steered by the captain in person towards the creek, the entrance of which was seen to open plainly enough under the brow of the cliff, at the base of which some breakers were boiling white upon a ridge of rock, "like the devil's own milk," as Noah said, adding:

"I wonder why the deuce that old fellow wouldn't come aboard? I hope it isn't a snare, this kind inwitation to anchor in a creek."

"A snare, Noah?" repeated Bartelot.

"'Cause, sir, he has the look of an old wrecker, to my mind."

A dead calm soon fell upon the land and sea, and from the square yards of the _Hermione_, her fore and maincourse, and a jury main-topsail, hung down straight and motionless, till they were hauled up prior to furling, as she glided slowly, and with almost imperceptible motion, through the narrow gut of the creek.

"Leather strip--ten fathoms; red rag--seven fathoms; seven again; white rag--five fathoms," Foster kept repeating from time to time, as he hove the hand-line from the bow of the leading boat. Bartelot and Morrison were also in it, and pulling with all their strength, for they had the kedge anchors and a couple of strong Manilla warps with them.

Beyond its narrow entrance, which was almost shrouded in mangroves, that brushed the ship's channels, the creek opened out into a tiny bay, or oval-shaped basin, and there, before sunset had beamed its red farewell upon the summit of the rocks, the _Hermione_, with her courses hauled, her jury topsail-yards lowered upon the cap, her spanker brailed up, and her jib and stay-sails stowed away, was moored quietly, as if in the middle of a dock, by two warps, one at the stem and the other at the stern, both being carried ashore to her kedge anchors, which were embedded in the banks, among the mangroves and other luxuriant vegetation that grew down to the water's edge.

"From here to Port Louis we have a run of about seven hundred odd miles," said Captain Phillips; "the season is fine; but we shall fall to our work by daybreak to-morrow--fill the tank--overhaul the fore rigging, have it tarred down and rattled anew in some parts, and then be off with the first breeze of wind, as I don't fancy the Madagascar fever."

"And this creek, with its mangroves dipping in the slimy ooze, seems just the place to catch it," said Tom Bartelot.

"I suppose it was in some such cliff as that, Ethel," said Morley, looking up at the tall rocky brow which overhung the creek, "that old Marco Polo, who, it seems, wrote about Madagascar in the thirteenth century, says the birds called the roc built their nests."

"Were they like Sindbad's roc?" asked Rose.

"Larger, says old Marco, in form resembling an eagle, and so huge that they would soar into the air with the largest elephant in their talons, and let it fall dead on the earth prior to devouring it; and that their wings, which, when outspread, obscured the sunshine like a flying cloud, measured forty-eight feet apart, each pen-feather being twenty-four feet in length."

"There is nothing like telling a good story when one is about it; but I hope the breed is extinct," said Rose.

"Yes; like the giant wader of Australia, if it ever existed at all."

As the evening closed in, with no thought of local danger or treachery, but enjoying the brief cessation from the constant toil to which they were subjected by the smallness of their number, and thinking only of the termination of their voyage and a happy future, our friends were all grouped under the quarter-deck awning, and Noah was enjoying a quiet pipe at the windlass-bitt, with a can of grog beside him.

Aft, the top of the cabin skylight had been covered with a white cloth and improvised as a table, on which were spread some of the luscious fruits and sliced water-melon bought from the Malay, Puffadder, and a bottle or two of the captain's best wine.

Then, that music might not be wanting, Ethel and Rose, uniting their clear, sweet, happy voices, while Heriot accompanied them on his flute, which he played to perfection, sang one of their favourite duets, waking the echoes of the rocks, and rousing out of the mangroves the stork, the pelican, and the samba, with its plumage red as fire: while the red sunlight died away, and the tropical constellations came out, and while the solemn shadows deepened in that lonely creek, the soft English voices of the two sisters so well attuned together, filled Noah's stern eyes with moisture, and his rough old head with sweet, sad holy thoughts of other times, as he listened, and sat alone, the last occupant of the once crowded and noisy forecastle-bunks.

That lonely creek was fated to present a very different scene about the same hour on the morrow!