Part 7 (1/2)
”Yes, _sir_, you oaf! Where are your manners? Is that fellow a surgeon?”
”No; he is captain of this s.h.i.+p.”
”s.h.i.+p! Captain!” sneered the boy, in a contemptuous tone which made his listener writhe. ”Why, it's a trading schooner, isn't it?”
Poole was about to speak out sharply, when a glance at the helpless condition of the speaker disarmed him, and he said quietly--
”Oh, yes, of course it's a trading schooner, but it was originally a gentleman's yacht, and sails like one.”
”Indeed!” said the boy sneeringly. ”And pray whose is it?”
Poole looked at him open-eyed as if expecting to see him suffering from a little deliriousness again; but as no sign was visible he merely said quietly--
”My father's.”
”And pray who's your father?”
Poole looked at him again, still in doubt.
”That is.”
”Oh!”
There was silence for a few moments, before Fitz turned himself wearily and said in a careless, off-hand tone--
”And what's the name of the craft?”
”The _Silver Teal_.”
”Silver Eel--eh? What a ridiculously slippery name for a boat!”
”_Silver Teal_,” said Poole emphatically.
”Silver Grandmother! A nice set you must be to give your gimcrack craft such a name as that! But you may take my word for it that as soon as ever you are caught in your slippery eel you will all either be hung or go to penal servitude for life--though perhaps you'll be let off, as you are nothing better than a boy.”
”Oh yes, I am only a boy,” said Poole, rather bitterly; ”but the _Silver Teal_, or Silver Eel as you call it, has to be caught yet. Your people did not make a very grand affair of it the other night.”
”Pooh! That's only because one of our stupid fellows who had been on the watch the night before dropped to sleep. They'll soon have you.
You'll have the _Tonans_ thundering on your heels before you know where you are. I am expecting to hear her guns every minute.”
”That's quite possible,” said Poole quietly; ”but our little schooner will take some catching, I can tell you.”
”So you think,” said Fitz, ”but you in your ignorance don't know everything. You only sail, and what's the use of that against steam?
Just let our gunboat be after you in a calm, and then where are you going to be?”
”I don't know, and I don't think it's worth while to argue about it when we are out here in mid-ocean, and I suppose your gunboat is hanging about somewhere off the port of Liverpool. But look here, hadn't you better take father's advice and not talk so much? I don't mind what you say to me, and it doesn't hurt a bit, but you are rather weak yet, and after all you have gone through I shouldn't like to see you go back instead of forward. Why not have another nap?”
Fitz gave a contemptuous sniff, held his tongue as if his companion in the cabin were not worthy of notice, and lay perfectly still gazing out to sea, but with his face twitching every now and then as he lay thinking with all his might about some of the last words Poole had said connected with the possibility of the gunboat being so far away, and he alone and helpless among these strangers, his spirits sank. How was it all going to end? he thought. What a position to be in! The skipper had said something about putting him aboard some vessel, or ash.o.r.e;--but how or when? The position seemed hopeless in the extreme, and the poor weak lad thought and thought till his tired brain began to grow dizzy and ache violently, when kindly Nature led him to the temporary way out of the weary trouble which tortured him, and he fell fast asleep.