Part 40 (1/2)

No sooner had the pig been put on the spit, and the first fumes arisen, than there was a loud yell in the forest, followed immediately by the pattering of small feet, as if in tremendous haste.

”Aha! Squeaky, I knew _you_ would smell out the supper double quick,”

cried Billy with a laugh, as he looked towards the door.

”He never misses it,” said Gaff with a quiet smile. Next moment a small pig came scampering into the cave and rushed up to the fire, where it sat down promptly as if the sole object it had in view were to warm itself!

And this was indeed its only object, for that pig was pa.s.sionately, ludicrously fond of the fire! It was a pet pig.

One day when Billy was out hunting, he had caught it in a somewhat singular fas.h.i.+on. He usually went out hunting with a bow and arrow of his own making, and was very successful in bringing down white doves, parroquets, and such creatures, but could make nothing of the pigs, whose skins were too tough for his wooden and unshod arrows. He let fly at them, nevertheless, when he got a chance.

Well, on the day referred to, Billy had shot nothing, and was returning home in a somewhat pensive mood when he heard a squeak, and at once fitted an arrow to his bow. A rush followed the squeak, and dreadful yells accompanied the rush--yells which were intensified, if possible, when Billy's arrow went into an old sow's ear after glancing off the back of one of her little ones.

Billy ran after them in wild despair, for he knew that the shot was thrown away. One of the pigs had sprained its ankle, apparently, for it could only run on three legs. This pig fell behind; Billy ran after it, overtook it, fell upon it, and almost crushed it to death--a fact which was announced by an appalling shriek.

The mother turned and ran to the rescue. Billy gathered up the pig and ran for his, (and its), life. It was a hard run, and would certainly have terminated in favour of the sow had not the greater part of the chase been kept up among loose stones, over which the lad had the advantage. In a few minutes he descended a steep cliff over which the bereaved mother did not dare to run.

Thus did Billy become possessed of a live pig, which in a few weeks became a remarkably familiar and fearless inmate of the cavern home.

Billy also had a pet parroquet which soon became tame enough to be allowed to move about at will with a cropped wing, and which was named Shrieky. This creature was a mere bundle of impudent feathers, and a source of infinite annoyance to the pig, for, being possessed of considerable powers of mimicry, it sometimes uttered a porcine shriek, exciting poor Squeaky with the vain hope that some of its relations had arrived, and, what was far worse, frequently imitated the sounds of crackling fire and roasting food, which had the effect of causing Squeaky to rush into the cave, to meet with bitter disappointment.

”Now, Squeaky,” said the Bu'ster, hitting the pig on its snout with a bit of firewood, ”keep your dirty nose away from yer cousin.”

Squeaky obeyed meekly, and removed to another spot.

”Isn't it a strange thing, daddy, that you and I should come to feel so homelike here?”

”Ay, it is strange,” responded Gaff with a sigh, as he laid down the hook he was working at and glanced round the cavern. ”Your mother would be astonished to see us now, lad.”

”She'll hear all about it some day,” said Billy. ”You've no notion what a splendid story I'll make out of all this when we get back to Cove!”

It was evident that the Bu'ster inherited much of his mother's sanguine disposition.

”P'raps we'll never git back to Cove,” said Gaff sadly; ”hows'ever, we've no reason to complain. Things might ha' bin worse. You'd better go and haul down the flag, lad. I'll look arter the roast till ye come back.”

”The roast'll look after itself, daddy,” said the Bu'ster; ”you look after Squeaky, however, for that sly critter's always up to mischief.”

Billy hastened to the top of Signal Cliff just as the sun was beginning to descend into the sea, and had commenced to pull down the flag when his eye caught sight of a sail--not on the far-off horizon, like a sea-gull's wing, but close in upon the land!

The shout that he gave was so tremendous that Gaff heard it in the cave, and rushed out in great alarm. He saw Billy waving a shred of cocoa-nut cloth frantically above his head, and his heart bounded wildly as he sprang up the hill like a stag.

On reaching the flagstaff he beheld the vessel, a large full-rigged s.h.i.+p, sailing calmly, and, to his eye, majestically, not far from the signal cliff.

His first impulse was to wave his hand and shout. Then he laid hands on the halliards of the flag and gave it an extra pull to see that it was well up, while Billy continued to stamp, cheer, yell, and wave his arms like a madman!

Only those who have been long separated from their fellow-men can know the wild excitement that is roused in the breast by the prospect of meeting with new faces. Gaff and Billy found it difficult to restrain themselves, and indeed they did not try to do so for at least ten minutes after the discovery of the s.h.i.+p. Then a feeling of dread came suddenly upon the former.

”Surely they'll never pa.s.s without takin' notice of us.”

”Never!” exclaimed Billy, whose sudden fall of countenance belied the word.